


Hand to Hand

by HASA_Archivist



Series: The Dûnhebaid Cycle, by Adaneth [6]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 3rd Age - The Stewards, Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 19:57:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 129,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3782426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Putting Lindon behind them, Saelon and Dírmaen return to Habad-e-Mindon . . . and the matter of the Ranger's unrequited love. And are things really going as well for Veylin as they seem? The Dûnhebaid Cycle, Part V.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

_Home is the sailor, home from sea,  
_ _And the hunter home from the hill._

\--Robert Louis Stevenson, _Requiem_

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Linen fluttered among the thorny may, winking paler than the cliff behind; folk were gathered on the high ledge at its foot, while two horsemen pelted down the twisting track faster than was wise.  Saelon bit her spray-salted lip and shook her head.

"They appear uneasy," Cairrâd observed, his keen Elvish eyes seeing more than hers at this distance.  "You have not neglected to tell me of any reefs?"

She snorted mildly and pushed wind-worried wisps of hair aside once more.  "How would we know if there were?"  Presuming he spoke of rocks, rather than other hazards.  "It is long since we were creatures of the sea."

The captain of the ship Círdan had dispatched to speed her journey home canted one slim sable brow.  "You cannot be speaking of yourself, Gaerveldis.  Surely you know where the Sea shows its teeth on the ebb."

An apt image, calling to mind the gnashing white breakers outside the cramped cove where they spent the day of storm, the horses gratefully cropping sodden turf as she strolled the stony shore, glorying in the tempest's tumult.  "Along the headlands.  The bay is clear, save for one black rock in the midst of the strand."  She knew it well, her favorite seat amid the surf.

Cairrâd lifted his head and, when that did not give him the view he wished, leapt lightly onto the narrow topstrake, clasping a stay against the lively motion of the ship.  "Ah!  Anhwest," he called to the Elf at the steerboard, "bear towards the higher dunes."

"There is Hanadan!" Gaernath cried, as the other mariners trimmed the sail.

"Where?"  Saelon stepped forward to join her red-headed young cousin by the swan-necked prow, where the spray flew freely.

He pointed to the break in the sandhills near the rock.  "There!"

Yes; a dark-haired child slithering down the sandy slope.  Saelon laughed as he shook like a dog when he reached the firmer strand, before beginning to caper and wave his arms in their direction.

"One of your kin?" Cairrâd asked with a smile, joining them.

"My eldest cousin's son."  The youngest of their line still living, a trust for the future.  She waved back across the water and grinned to see him run in a circle, antic as a puppy.  "A fetching child," she warned, "but curious beyond obedience."

Now the horsemen crested the dunes.  She waved to them as well, eager to reassure, for they bore spears in their hands.  Halpan wagged his in reply and welcome, while Partalan sat unmoved.

"The swart-skinned baldpate does not seem gladdened by your return."

"Little gladdens Partalan, save a tuneful harp and a brimming cup."  He had been jauntier before his lord's death.  "He was my brother's faithful swordsman, sent from him with the charge to keep his kinswomen."

Cairrâd pursed his lips.  "Why then did he not come south with you?"

One need not be as perceptive as an Elf to see that Dírmaen kept apart from her.  Even now, he stood among the horses: to reassure them, he said, though a few words from the Elves seemed to do all that was needful.  "Because Partalan trusts none but Men, and few of those!  He knows he must not bite without cause, but it is hard to stop his growling."

Ashore, Halpan was speaking to the swordsman, who turned his mount and dropped from sight as he rode away.  Perhaps her lieutenant also feared what the Dunlending might do or say before folk of Lindon, whose land this was.

As the sailors busied themselves with preparations for bringing the ship ashore, Saelon idly wondered whether Partalan would have made a better escort.  Foolishness, that spoke more to her dissatisfaction with Dírmaen than to sense.  Among the suave, subtle folk of Mithlond, a bellicose bigot, too often drunk, would have been far, far worse than the lovelorn and sometimes jealous Ranger.  Imagine Partalan's answer to Calennae's insults, or what the baleful marchwarden might have said to one tainted by Easterling blood!  Swords would have been drawn.

Saelon wished she had more and better men at her command—yet if any could have been found, she need not command.  As well wish for the days when she had dwelt alone in her high cave, pleasing none but herself.

Muted thunder on the strand, as Halpan galloped from where horses could be brought down the dune-face, spray and sand flying from his mount's hooves.  "Halloo!" he called out as he passed Hanadan, the boy chasing after.  "Do you not want to come into the river?"

"No!" Cairrâd shouted back

She would have asked the same herself a week ago, knowing naught of sailing but what came into the tales of Eärendil and Númenor.  The only other ship to visit them had moored in the mouth of their little river, yet it had been smaller.  This one, freighted with half a dozen horses, was unlikely to scrape across the bar even now, on the flood of the springs.

So, with her assurance for the bottom, Cairrâd was running his ship onto the beach.

Like their masters, the fine appearance of Elvish craft belied their sturdiness.  The art, she had been told, was in judging the speed to a nicety: at a halt, the swell would heave you in broadside, leaving the deck at an awkward angle and making it difficult to get off again; too swift, and the shock might rend timbers.

The keel kissed bottom and bit, slowing as if it had run into a deep bog.  Falfrem and Fânchast tossed out the anchor-stones, then leapt into the thigh-high water to place them to their satisfaction, so the ship would not shift before the ebb left it hard fast.

Halpan rode Auril up alongside, Hanadan perched on his saddlebow: uncle and nephew wore similar expressions of astonished wonderment, though the elder found his tongue first.  "Welcome home, Saelon!  What is this?"

"Círdan was kind," she said, to assure him on many counts.  "How are you all?"

Her Dúnedain cousin laughed.  "Everyone is well . . . but I had best tell you now that there are still stooks of corn unthreshed.  We did not expect you for another week, at least!  Greetings, Dírmaen!"

"Halpan," the Ranger acknowledged, stroking his gelding's neck as the beast whickered, stretching out his head towards Halpan's bay and snuffing deeply.

"And you, Gaernath: have you seen enough of Elves to content you?"

"Never!" the lad declared.  "You cannot imagine how fair Mithlond is!  You must come with us next Yáviérë to see for yourself."

"Can I go?" Hanadan wanted to know.

Halpan laughed and scruffed the boy's already unruly hair.  "No, nor me neither, for we must look after Srathen Brethil.  Bargoit will be coming back there.  Do you remember him?"

"Yes," Hanadan answered, though his former playmate's name cast a cloud over his shining face.  "I don't want to go to Srathen Brethil."

Little wonder, when his last memories of the place were evil: father and eldest brother slain by _raugs_ , mother half-mad with grief and foresight of worse to come.  "You needn't go," Saelon told him.  "Yet you cannot go to the Havens until you are older."

"How much older?  I'm a big boy now," he asserted.  "As big as a Dwarf, and they go!"

"Did I say you could go when you are tall?" she scorned the attempt to change her conditions.  "You may be Dwarf-high, but you do not have their years.  Perhaps, if you are as dutiful as Gaernath, you may go when you are his age."

"But that's _forever_!" Hanadan protested.

Cairrâd came up, grinning.  "What is your age, Pînadan?"

The boy glowered at the lofty Elf, yet his birth-name was true enough that he did not argue with him about his size.  "Eight.  What's yours?"

"I should not like to say, but I knew your eight times eight great-grandsire, and a very fine mariner was he."

"Eight times eight?"  An excellent reply, for the boy promptly began counting it out on his fingers, to see how much it came to.

"Shall I set him down and fetch you ashore?" Halpan asked, smiling.

She was home.  "No," she scoffed, sitting on the topstrake and swinging her legs over.  The water was shallower here by the bow, and the ship lay to windward, breaking the waves.  "Do not you treat me as a fine lady now."

The cold kiss of the surf was not the same as further south, more familiar somehow; and when she brought her hand to her mouth, she fancied the salt had a different savour as well.  As she waded ashore and wrung out her skirts, Gaernath followed, their bags perched high on his shoulder.

She was telling over Hanadan's tally for him—his count continually became hopelessly muddled between the third and fourth set of hands—in the wave-smoothed sand, name by name, and had gotten to Tarcil before a familiar voice cried from above, "What wyrd is this?"

"Well met, Maelchon!" Saelon called up to him, and followed the beefy husbandman's staring gaze to where the horses stood snorting, fetlocks draggled from their plunge into the sea but glad to have still earth underfoot once more.  Hearing him, his black mare strode eagerly to the dune-foot, where she was balked by the sliding sand, and whinnied plaintively.  Smiling, Saelon assured the Edain, "This is not enchantment, but the kindness of Círdan and the skill of his mariners, which has spared us many a weary league."

"Kindness, ay?" Maelchon repeated distractedly, looking for an easy way down and finding none.  "Stand, lass!  I'll come to you.  So the Lord of Lindon was pleased with our rent?"

After herself, Maelchon was most wedded to this land, though not from any love of the sea.  As a husbandman, he found the sweet, light soils of the machair a joy, and had little desire to return to the cold clay of Srathen Brethil.  "Well-pleased, despite the thinness of the pelts."

"I am glad to hear it, Lady," he said, though he sounded less than charmed as he beat sand from his clothes after ploughing down to the strand.  "Ho, Blackie!  Yes, I am happy to see you, too.  Do not knock me down!"

Chuckling, Saelon left him to greet his beasts and assure himself that they had taken no harm from their long journey.  "Cairrâd!  You and your crew will permit me to repay Elvish hospitality, I hope, when the ship is secured."

"Gladly!  By the time you have finished your lesson, we will be done here."

Dírmaen saddled Mada and took her horses off for water and to rejoin their fellows on well-known pasture; soon after, Maelchon led his away, promising to return with wife and children for a celebratory supper.  Halpan watched the Elves and Gaernath at work, fascinated . . . and perhaps a bit envious of the lad, who had learnt enough of ships to be some help as they closely furled the sail and coiled ropes.

When all was trim and the ship settled by the retreat of the tide, they left the strand and strolled across the machair, Auril bearing their baggage as Halpan walked alongside, conversing with Cairrâd.  After so many days among Elves along their verdant shores, Saelon was ashamed to see how much beauty the plain behind the sandhills had lost: Falathar had had cause for harshness.  Once a lush mead of flower-starred turf, all the center was now a waste of close-cropped stubble, a few hardy but unlovely plants flourishing amid the plough- and hoof-churned sand, the very grains dusty and dirty in comparison to the wave-washed strand.  Thankfully, none of their guests said aught of it, though they must find it grievous.  Yet her folk must have corn.

The rutted track up to the cliff-shelf was another disgrace, compared to the paved ways of Mithlond, but there was nothing to be done about that, either.

When they reached the narrow flat at the foot of the cliff, however, there was little to blush at, save for the still-damp laundry.  Rowan and may were in their full autumnal beauty, leaves fading but berries bright, while straw shone like pale gold on the slab where they threshed their corn, the abandoned black bogwood flails laid cross-wise against gusts that might scatter the stalks.  Her garden was in good order, the kail flourishing and carrots ready for pulling, though it would have been better if the bean-haulms were already dug in; yet someone had braided three new skeps for her bees.

"Ah!" Fânchast exclaimed.  "You have kept the spring just as it was.  I am glad!"

"You have been here before?"  Saelon looked from brimming basin, carved from the cliff by the slender fount that filled it, to the mariner.  For a score of years she had dwelt here, visited by none save her brother . . . but that was nothing, as Elves reckoned time.

"My father loves to pursue the herring shoals up and down the coasts.  When I was young, they favored the waters about Himling, and we would pull out here to cure our catch.  The sands have shifted somewhat in the bay," the Sea-Elf reckoned, casting an appraising glance over the shore, "but less has changed here."  Stepping towards the cave beside the basin, he peered curiously through the doorway in the wattle that walled out the weather, new-thatched with heather.  "And aside from this screen, this has hardly altered either!"

The caves' shelter and sweet water made the place so fit for habitation, she should not be surprised that others had used it before her.  "I hope you will feel quite at home, then," Saelon told him, wondering how many Elves had turned away, finding their favored spot occupied by a Man.  "I meant to offer you all its roof this evening."

"We should turn you out your first night home?"

Saelon smiled at the disavowal.  "Alas, I no longer house here, but a little further along—" she pointed to the right with her chin "—in the hall the Dwarves delved for us, the first winter my folk were with me.  The caves could not hold us all, and you must know what the gales can be here."

Fânchast shook his head, perhaps in wonder at their foolhardiness.  "Too well!  If you are willing to suffer the dark season of storms for love of this shore, should we deny you the blessings summer brings?

"I thank you for your good word."  Saelon bowed her head in gratitude and wished all Lindon's folk were of his mind.  "Come, let me introduce you to my niece."

Rian stood patiently before the benches that had been set out on the greensward for their visitors, but when Saelon drew near, the lass dropped a deep curtsey to the Elves and begged, "Your pardon, sirs," before casting her arms about Saelon in a fierce hug, and kissing her cheek.  "I never knew how much you did!" she whispered in her ear, before drawing back and saying more decorously, "Welcome home, aunt.  You had a pleasant journey, I trust.  Who are these guests you bring us?"

"However pleasant the journey, it is better to be home," Saelon assured her.  "These are the mariners of the good ship that shortened our way, by Círdan's grace."

When she had named Cairrâd and his crew, Rian gestured forward the black-haired sisters Murdag and Unagh, who bore bowls of water and linen over their arms.  "I am sure you will wish to wash the dust—or rather, the salt and sand!—of your sea-road from you.  Would you prefer ale or mead to refresh you?"

Some chose one, and some the other; Muirne, who seemed to have gained somewhat in assurance during her absence, filled the finely turned wooden cups.  "I must beg you to excuse us," Rian said with winsome regret as she handed the captain his mead.  "Dinner will not be hearty, but if I can prevail upon you to remain so long, we will make amends at supper."

"We are at your mercy, lady," Cairrâd told her.  "The tide has turned and our ship is hard aground.  It will not float sooner than the middle of the night and, as the moon has hid his face, we will be grateful if you suffer us until tomorrow's morn."

"No more grateful than we, that you suffer our presence on your shore," Rian assured him.  Turning, she accepted the cup that she offered to Anhwest.  "The chance to return your hospitality is very welcome."

Perhaps, Saelon reflected, as she took her turn to lave her face, she ought to send Rian to Mithlond next Yáviérë.  Her niece took a candid pleasure in the courtesies that she often found trying, and had the grace Saelon had so admired in her mother, Rian's grandmother.  It was a blessing that the lass took so little after her own dam.  "What have you in the larder?" she asked as she wiped her hands.  "Thank you, Unagh.  Let me see—"

"No, aunt," Rian said very firmly, taking a cup of mead and setting it in her hands.  "You have only just arrived—sit and take your ease while you may!"

"Yes, Lady," Halpan concurred, rejoining them after stabling Auril in the byre-cave.  "Let Rian see to the table: I do not think you will be disappointed.  Tell me of the Havens, and how you fared there!"

Her Dúnedain kin had closed ranks against her; the cottar lasses would not meet her eye.  Saelon hoped this was no more than cover for some degree of squalor about the hearth she would not approve of.  Well, she had returned earlier than had been expected.  After a long enough pause to give warning of her suspicion, she doucely said, "Very well."  Settling on the nearest bench, she tasted her mead.  If they could repair whatever was amiss in the course of dinner, she would happily forgo the chance to take them to task, and if Rian desired to take on a larger share of the household duties, she could forgive much.

There were things she would not tell before Círdan's men, but much else that could give no offense, and mayhap some pleasure: praise for the fair town about the ancient tower by the firth, and the beauty of its ships; the bountiful hospitality of its guest-hall; and the benevolence of its lord.

"And Master Veylin," Halpan wondered, "he has settled matters between himself and Lindon?"

Saelon took another draught of mead, remembering her friend's murmured reassurance—if such it was—in Círdan's council chamber.  "He seemed not displeased by how their negotiations were proceeding, but did not expect any immediate resolution."

Cairrâd gazed across the arc of the cliffs, to the whiter patch that was the fresh cut of Nordri's quarry.  "You speak of the Dwarf who is your neighbor?"

"Yes.  Did you not see him in Mithlond?"

"No."  The captain cocked his head.  "I have heard that Dwarves fear the Sea.  Is that why he did not sail with us?"

"Fear the sea?"  She considered.  "From what I have seen, fear is too strong a word.  Mistrust, certainly.  They see the signs of its arising in the past writ in stone—" gesturing to the sea-carved cave beside them, nearly a score of fathoms above the machair "—and are chary.  But no, that is not why Veylin and his companions did not return with us.  He had business among his own folk to the south."

Falfrem drained his cup and smiled at Muirne, who had remained to serve while the others retreated to marshal the midday meal.  "May I trouble you for more of that excellent ale?"  As the young goodwife hastened to comply, blushing very prettily, the Elf considered the pale scar in the far cliff.  "I had wondered why none of your neighbors came out to greet you.  So all of them are away?"

Did he hope the Dwarves were so few, or merely wished to avoid meeting any?  "Neighbors, yes, but not so near as that!" Saelon replied, with what she hoped was a mollifying smile.  A pity, in some ways, for it would take the better part of a day to bring them the news from the Havens; there would not be time enough after the ship departed tomorrow.  "That is not their doorstep—they dwell some leagues north of here.  Their mason loves this fine, bright stone, and wished to use some in their halls.  That is one of the things Veylin is negotiating with your lord, if Dwarvish rights do not stretch so far."

"Círdan will know the right of it," Cairrâd said, watching as Finean and Artan set up trestles and boards, and the lasses began to lade them.  "Is that boar?" he asked as Murdag set down a ham, steering the talk towards calmer waters.

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

**Hand to Hand: author's notes**

This is the fifth story in the Dûnhebaid ("Westshores") cycle, which is set in northwestern Eriador during the mid-29th century of the Third Age of Middle-earth.  As explained in the author's notes for _Rock and Hawk_ , this cycle takes its sense of place from the West Highland coast of Scotland and draws heavily on the archaeology and traditional lifeways of that region, as Tolkien drew on the languages and lifeways of the English West Midlands for the Shire.  As the story moves to other parts of Eriador, I have attempted to give each area its own flavor through the use of appropriate vocabulary as well as geographical and cultural details.  In general, I prefer "Dark Age" (post-Roman, early medieval) models for the Mannish cultures of what was the Kingdom of Arnor.  (Gondor, in this view, is not unlike the surviving Eastern Empire, whose capital Byzantium was reknown for its civilized sophistication.  Thorongil a Varangian?)

At the request of several readers, I am trying to cut down on the "dictionary" notes; if you find an arcane or oddly used word that is not clarified in the notes at the end of the chapter, please go to the [Dûnhebaid Dictionary](http://astele.co.uk/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=7676&SPOrdinal=1).  Since many of these words are used repeatedly in my stories, putting them in one place seemed simpler than continually repeating them.

As ever, I am grateful to the good folk at the Garden of Ithilien for fellowship and constructive criticism.  Lia (whose suggestion won out), Ragnelle, and Gwynnyd were especially helpful regarding the tricky mount and dismount in Chapters 32 and 33.

For the fullest appreciation of the characters and events in this story, I recommend that you read the preceding parts of the cycle: _Rock and Hawk_ (T.A. 2847); _Fair Folk and Foul_ (T.A. 2848); and _Of Like Passion_ and _After Stormy Seas_ (T.A. 2849).

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Chapter 1

**Pînadan** : Sindarin, "little man."

**"his birth-name was true enough"** : _hanadan_ is Sindarin for "intelligent man."

**Tarcil** : the sixth king of Arnor.

**Wyrd** : magic, enchantment.

**Haulms** : the stems or stalks of crop-plants after harvest.

**Himling** : the island north of Forlindon; in the First Age before the drowning of Beleriand, this was the Hill of Himring.


	2. Homecoming

Since the number of supporting characters in the Dûnhebaid Cycle continues to grow, a crib sheet may be useful.  The Men formerly of Srathen Brethil are divided by household, so status and kinship can be more easily seen.  The Dwarves of Gunduzahar are divided into groups including close kin, prentices, and followers.  I follow Tolkien's convention of adding a dagger symbol (†) before the dates of untimely deaths; the names of those who are deceased, from any cause, are italicized.  All dates given are Third Age unless otherwise noted.

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

**Men**

There are many different kinds of Men in Middle-Earth ( _LotR_ , App. F, "Of Men").  Since my stories are based in northwestern Eriador, most of the Men are either Dúnedain, the long-lived descendants of the Númenóreans, or Edain, descendants of the First Age Atani who did not remove to Númenor.  The Dunlendings or Swarthy Men, whose ancestors dwelt in the vales of the White Mountains before the arrival of the Númenórean founders of Gondor, were apparently of Easterling rather than Atani stock; they were usually hostile to the Dúnedain and Edain peoples such as the Rohirrim.  It seems that many of this folk settled in the relatively empty lands around the old border between Arnor and Gondor.  The Bree-Men are said to be descended from people of this folk who came up the North-South Road.

Dúnedain of Habad-e-Mindon

**Saelon** (2790-  ): lady of Habad-e-Mindon

**Rian** (2832-  ): Saelon's neice (BrDa; Halladan's daughter)

**Halpan** (2821-  ): Saelon's cousin (FaBrSoSo; Haldorn's brother)

**Hanadan** (2841-  ): Halpan's nephew (BrSo; Haldorn's son)

**Gaernath** (2832-  ): Saelon's Edain cousin (FaFaDaSoSo; Gede's son)

**Partalan** (2801-  ): Dunlending man at arms and harper

**Canand** (2792-  ): Edain drover

**Dírmaen** (2796-  ): Ranger of the North

Free Edain of Habad-e-Mindon

**Maelchon** (2810-  ): husbandman

**Fransag** (2815-  ): Maelchon's wife

**Gormal** (2837-  ): Maelchon's son

**Maon** (2839-  ): Maelchon's son

**Guaire** (2841-  ): Maelchon's son

**Ros** (2843-  ): Maelchon's daughter

**Uspag** (2845-  ): Maelchon's son

**Malmin** (2847-  ): Maelchon's daughter

Cottars of Habad-e-Mindon

**Airil** (2780-  ): gaffer

**Artan** (2828-  ): Airil's grandson (SiSo)

**Muirne** (2830-  ): Artan's wife

**Ailig** (2848-  ): Artan's son

**Dornach** (2849-  ): Artan's son

**Tearlag** (2815-  ): serving woman

*

**Leod** (2831-  ): Airil's grandson (SiSo)

**Murdag** (2832-  ): Leod's wife and Finean's daughter

**Meig** (2850–  ): Leod's daughter

*

**Finean** (2799-  ): widower

**Unagh** (2829-  ): Finean's daughter

**Teig** (2808-  ): Aniel's brother and kennelman

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Folk of Srathen Brethil not at Habad-e-Mindon

_**Aniel** (2812-†2848): huntsman_

**_Brassar_ ** _(2785–†2809): Saelon's second brother_

**Bereth** (2816-  ): Halpan's sister

**Bred** (2812-  ): manservant

**Cinioch** : Edain husbandman, returning in 2050

**Deonaid** (2829-  ): Gaernath's older brother

**Drustan** : Edain husbandman, returning in 2050

**Eapag** (2829-  ): Mais's wife

**Earnan** (2848-  ): Sitheag's bastard son by Maelchon

**Eithel** (2832-  ): Hanadan's older sister

_**Fokel** (2809-†2850): manservant_

_**Gede** (2842-†2847) :free Edain husbandman; Gaernath's father_

**_Gilthir_ ** _(2751–2800): Saelon's mother_

_**Gràinne** (2786-†2850): Fransag's mother_

**_Haldhaer_ ** _(2728–†2826): Saelon's father, 14 th Lord of Srathen Brethil_

_**Haldorn** (2784-†2847): Halpan's elder brother, Halladan's cousin (FaBrSo)_

_**Halladan** (2781-†2847): former lord of Srathen Brethil, Saelon's brother_

**_Hallas_ ** _(2794–2800): Saelon's youngest brother_

**Halmir** (2835-  ): Saelon's nephew, Halladan's son and heir; fostered with Râdbaran

**Handin** (2837-  ): Hanadan's older brother

_**Handir** (2829-†2847): Hanadan's eldest brother_

**Lis** (2824-  ): Gede's widow (second wife); publically alleged that Saelon had lain with Veylin

**Mais** (2825-  ): free Edain husbandman; Gaernath's eldest brother; attached to Halmir

**_Minuial_ ** _(2778–†2847): Saelon's elder sister_

**Morwen** (2844-  ): Haldorn's daughter

**_Nannag_ ** _(2849-†2850): Maelchon's daughter_

_**Nárwen** (2706-2826): Saelon's grandmother (MoMo), originally from the Tower Hills_

**_Necton_ ** _(2789-†2808): Edain cottar; Saelon's lover in her youth_

**Níniel** (2848-  ): Hanadan's youngest sister

_**Núneth** (2803-†2847): Halladan's wife_

**Roid** (2834-  ): Gaernath's younger brother

**Sitheag** (2823-  ): serving woman

**Sonas** (2848-  ): Mais's daughter

**Sorcha** (2827-  ): Gaernath's older sister; Tarain's sweetheart

_**Tathar** (2841-†2847): Halladan's daughter_

**Tarain** (2818-  ): man at arms, serving Halmir

**Urwen** (2795-  ): Hanadan's mother, Haldorn's widow, daughter of Halglas; broken by grief and foresight; returned to her kin in the Emyn Uial

**Uven** : Edain husbandman, returning in 2050

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Dúnedain connected to Tum Melui

**Dûnthand** (2734-  ): Ranger (retired); Dírmaen's father

**Thenid** (2761-  ): Dírmaen's mother

**Dunech** (2785-  ): Dírmaen's eldest brother

**Nellind** (2787-  ): Dírmaen's elder sister

**Laegadan** (2754-  ): Nellind's husband

**Merilin** (2824-  ): Nellind's second daughter

**Taratal** (2790-  ): Dírmaen's second brother

**Dírmaen** (2796-  ): Ranger of the North

**Míliel** (2808-  ): Dírmaen's younger sister

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Other Dúnedain of the North

**Ailinel** (2726-  ): Dírmaen's aunt (FaSi)

**Alphil** : young woman courted by Dírmaen

**Arador** (2820-  ): Argonui's son and heir

**_Arathorn_** _(2693-†2848): Argonui's father; 12 th Chieftain; slain by _raugs _in Srathen Brethil_

**Argonui** (2757-  ): 13 th Chieftain of the Dúnedain; great-grandfather of King Elessar

**Beldir** : Dúnedain dwelling in dale just south of Tum Melui

**Brandin** (2783-  ): Ranger of the North

**Bregol** (2801-  ): Beldir's heir

**Borthir** (2822-  ): Ranger of the North, message-rider

**Candíl** (2814-  ): friend of Taratal; second son of Halforod

**Dírhavel** (2731–  ): Ranger loved by Saelon's sister Minuial

**Dolladan** (2775-  ): Ranger sent to Habad-e-Mindon in 2848

**Dollchíll** (2805-  ): Ranger of the North, wounded on the Hoarwell in 2846

**Dornadan** (2787-  ): Ranger sent to Habad-e-Mindon in 2848

**_Faelchol_ ** _(†2849): Ranger of the North, killed by outlaws on Coldfell_

**Faelnoth** (2773-  ): Ranger of the North

**Forodirn** (2762-  ): Ranger of the North; Argonui's blood-brother

**Halforod** (2746-  ): Dúnedain lord of Rhassarth

**Halglas** (2732-  ): Dúnedain lord of Calen Amon in the Emyn Uial; Hanadan's grandfather (MoFa)

**Halgorn** (2784-  ) Ranger sent to Habad-e-Mindon in 2848; a passion for killing monsters

**Halnaeth** (2738-  ): Dúnedain lord in the South Downs

**Hanend** (2812-  ) Ranger sent to Habad-e-Mindon by Arathorn.

**Limchen** : young woman courted by Dírmaen

**Meagvir** (2761-  ): Ranger of the North, posted at Habad-e-Mindon in the summer of 2848

**Maethron** (2792-  ): Ranger of the North

**Mereth** (2826-  ): young woman courted by Dírmaen

**Râdbaran** (2746-  ): Dúnedain lord, leader of Rangers sent to Habad-e-Mindon in 2848; foster-father of Halmir

**_Rainind_ ** _(†2849): Ranger of the North, killed by outlaws on Coldfell_

**Racheron** : friend of Dírmaen

**Randir** (2794-  ): Ranger of the North, friend of Dírmaen

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Other Men

**Bosa** : sokeman in Tum Melui

**Coifi:** Candíl's chief huntsman

_**Dunstan** : Eriador outlaw_

**Heiu** : cook at Gellnen

_**Oleg** : reiver from the hills west of Angmar_

_**Yaro** : reiver from the hills west of Angmar_

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

**Dwarves**

There are seven kindreds or houses of Dwarves: the Longbeards, whose Father was Durin the Eldest, originally seated in the Misty Mountains; the Firebeards and Broadbeams of the Ered Luin; and the Ironfists and Stiffbeards, Blacklocks and Stonefoots, whose mansions were further east (HoME XII: _The Peoples of Middle-Earth_ , "Of Dwarves and Men").  I have supposed that, since they are notoriously clannish, their sociopolitical organization is firmly founded on kinship and posited that kindreds are further divided into septs or lines (e.g., Durin's Line, _LotR_ , App. A.III, genealogical lineage), led by chieftains.

I have given the Firebeards four septs; in order of seniority, they are Regin's Line [ReL], Nidr's Line [NL], Thrir's Line [ThL], and Rauða's Line [RaL].  Further, I have conjectured a lower level of elders (ealdormen) who serve as a chieftain's advisors, each representing something not dissimilar to a hundred (an old administrative unit that may have originally supplied a hundred men to the army).

While some authors have suggested that Dwarves follow a social pattern similar to that of later medieval guilds, I have seen no evidence for such a rigidly hierarchical system among them.  ("Master" is a title other races give them; Dwarves do not seem to use it for each other.  The word "apprentice" appeared in _The Hobbit_ in reference to the sons of the Men of Dale.)  Therefore I have followed early medieval models: where a craftsman was not trained by his own kin, he would find a master (of the art) to work under until he had learned all he wished.  Given that Dwarves "ill endure the domination of others" ( _The Silmarillion_ , "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age," p. 288), I doubt they would bind themselves under another by anything except their own desire for the secrets of their craft and the deference they give to elders.  For lack of better "archaic" words to describe this mentor-protégé relationship, I have used "prentice" for the protégé, but it does not have the specific (lowest) rank connotation the term "apprentice" has under a guild system.

Gunduzahar (Firebeards unless otherwise noted)

**Veylin** , son of Vali (2708-  ): gemsmith; chieftain of Thrir's Line

**Oski** , son of Onar (2804-  ): prentice to Veylin; Longbeard

**Thyrð** , son of Thekk [NL] (2809-  ): Rekk (BrSo) and Veylin's nephew (SiSo); prentice to Veylin

*

**Rekk** , son of Ekki [NL] (2686-  ): waterwright

**Auð** (2698-  ): tailor; Veylin's sister and Rekk's widowed sister-in-law

**Ingi** , son of Iolf (2769-  ): prentice to Rekk

**Haust** : plumber

*

**Nordri** , son of Narði [ThL] (2661-  ): stonemason

**Nyr** , son of Nordri [ThL] (2763-  ): stonemason

**Haki** , son of Harin [ThL] (2687-  ): ironmaster, Nordri's cousin (FaBrSo)

**Gamal** , son of Grani [NL] (2760-  ): stonemason; former prentice to Nordri

**Balnar** , son of Nál [ReL] (2796-  ): prentice to Nordri

**Neðan** , son of Narvi [ThL] (2803-  ): Nordri's cousin (FaBrSoSo) and prentice

*

**Grani** , son of Guti [NL] (2658-  ): carpenter, Nordri's cousin (FaSiSo)

**Thyrnir** , son of Thekk [NL] (2798-  ): Rekk (BrSo) and Veylin's nephew (SiSo), prentice to Grani

*

**Bersa** , son of Berg (2624-  ): cook; Broadbeam

**Bersi** , son of Berg (2657-  ): coppersmith; Broadbeam

**Hlin** : Bersi's wife; leatherworker

**Barði** , son of Bersi (2755-  ): coppersmith; Broadbeam

**Fram** , son of Feyn (2783-  ): prentice to Bersi; Broadbeam

*

**Aðal** , son of Aðr [ReL] (2738-  ): carver

**Vígir** (2734-  ): stonecarver; Longbeard

*

**Sút** [ReL]: spinster silversmith

*

**Laufi** , son of Lautnir [ThL] (2716-  ): glazier, lampwright

*

**Sannir** , son of Sigur (2679-  ): miner working for Bersi; Broadbeam

**Prut** , son of Prudir (2741-  ): miner working for Bersi; Longbeard

**Hogga** , son of Holdin (2722-  ): miner working for Bersi; Broadbeam

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Dwarves of Sulûnduban (Firebeards unless otherwise noted)

**Regin** , son of Drengr: king of the Firebeards; armourer

**Reynir** , son of Regin (2779–  ): prentice weaponsmith

**Reykr** , son of Regin (2790–  ): prentice armourer

**Godi** (2689–  ): Sút's brother, cousin to Regin (FaFaBrSoSo)

**Geirr** : axe-smith, son of Vali's rival

**Bunir** : a senior mason

**Fastir** : his daughter is betrothed to Dyr

**Gjarn** : Regin's chief draughtsman

**Orð** , son of Orti [ReL] (2691-  ): Arðri's father

*

**Thjalfi** , son of Thagall (2653-  ): chieftain of Nidr's Line; goldsmith

**Bogi** : tile-maker

**Geirr** : axesmith; prentice of Veylin's father's rival

**Girni** : cobbler; brother-in-law of Bogr

**Makt** : widow; lampwright

**Narfi** , son of Nar [ThL] (2794-  ): prentice to Siggr; cousin to Nordri (FaBrSoSo) and Haki

**Siggr** , son of Seggr [NL] (2689-  ): jointer

**Skap** : candle-maker

**Thorð** , son of Norð [NL] (2656-  ): Thiolf's father

*

**Veylin** , son of Vali (2708-  ): chieftain of Thrir's Line; gemsmith

**Vitnir** , son of Nali [ThL] (2735-  ): ironmaster; Veylin's cousin (FaBrSo) and heir

*

**Lof** (2620-  ): chief ealdorman; graver

**Beina** : Lof's wife

**Logi** , son of Lof (2752-  ): graver

**Gledi** : has a predatory daughter

*

**Nordri:** ealdorman; see Gunduzahar

**Eigsa** : Nordri's wife

**Narvi** : cousin of Nordri (FaBroSo); stonemason

**Bileg** , son of Balnir [ThL] (2697-  ): Oddi's cousin

**Oddi** , son of Nidi [ThL] (2673-  ): stonemason

*

**Bál** : ealdorman

**Roðin** : cousin and heir of Rof

*

**Aldtinn** (2601-  ): ealdorman

*

**Harðr** : ealdorman

**Megir** : has a susceptible and gullible son

**Hyr** : chain-maker

**Dyr** : Hyr's son

*

**Skaði** (2694-  ): ealdorman

**Skani** , son of Skaði [ThL] (2802-  ): blacksmith

**Trur** : who has two sons

**Tof** : cousin and heir of Rof

*

**Holl** , son of Fólgin (2675-  ): chieftain of Rauða's Line; swordsmith

**Hodr** , son of Fodr [RaL] (2721-  ): delver

**Steði** , son of Eykr [RaL]: Moll's cousin; pony-breaker

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Denizens of a dwarf-house south of the Thôntaen pass (Broadbeams unless otherwise noted)

**Thvari** , son of Ari: kin of Bersi

**Nari** , son of Ari: kin of Bersi

**Thár** , son of Thvari

**Hervor** : spouse of Thvari

**Heptir** : quarryman for Thvari, Longbeard

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Other Dwarves of note

**_Arðri_ ** _, son of Orð [ReL] (2791-†2848): prentice to Veylin_

**Freygr** (2614-  ): an aged Longbeard gemsmith, formerly of Erebor

**Hled** : an unsociable silversmith who dwells south of the Thôntaen pass

**Ketli** , son of Vetil (2729-  ): coalmaster; follower of Vitnir; Broadbeam

**Keypti** : axe-smith, former prentice of Vali

**_Nyrað_ ** _, son of Nordri [ThL] (2772-†2848): stonemason_

**_Radsvinn_ ** _: Veylin's master_

**_Rof_ ** _[ThL]: cousins squabbling over his inheritance_

**_Siða_ ** _(2596-2843): Veylin and Auð's mother_

**Soti** : sold Veylin his sorrel pony

**_Thekk_ ** _, son of Ekki [NL] (2695-†2847): gemsmith; Rekk's brother, Auð's husband_

**_Thiolf_ ** _, 3 rd son of Thorð [NL] (2776-†2848): prentice to Nordri_

**_Vestri_ ** _, son of Oddi [ThL] (2775-†2847): prentice to Veylin_

**_Vitr_ ** _, son of Nali [ThL] (2724-†2848): ironmaster; Veylin's cousin (FaBrSo)_

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

**Elves**

While they are not always readily apparent to other races, there are significant ethnic divisions among Elves.  There has been considerable intermingling in Lindon (as in most of the Elven realms by the Third Age), but the immortality of Elves assures that older divisions continue to have meaning so long as individuals take their identity from their former alliegances.  For the most detailed descriptions of these groupings and their names, see the later parts of the essay "Quendi and Eldar" in HoME XI: _War of the Jewels_.  Here is a brief listing of those important for my stories.

Falathrim, Sea Elves: the original followers of Círdan, members of the Third Clan who came too late to embark on what became Tol Eressëa (the Eglain, "the Forsaken"), or who chose to remain on the shores of Middle-Earth.

Iathrim: the folk of Doriath.

Laegrim, Green Elves: the folk of Ossiriand, the original inhabitants of Lindon; descended from the Nandor and more closely related to the Silvan Elves of Lórien and Mirkwood.

Lonnathrim: the folk of the Havens, the current followers of Círdan.  A term of my own invention for those Elves who--by virtue of comparative youth, mixed parentage, or strong attachment--give their primary alliegance to the Havens rather than older identities.

Noldor, Golodhrim, High or Deep Elves: those of the Second Clan who returned from Aman.

Sindar, Eluwaith, Grey Elves: the subjects of Thingol, including those outside Doriath.

Elves of Lindon

**Aerthaith** : one who once brought Veylin to judgment in a dispute

**Alagos** : Lonnathrim attendant at the guest-hall

**Anhwest** : sailor

**Brofaron** : Laegrim marchwarden

**Cairrâd** : ship captain

**Calennae** : Iathrim marchwarden

**Celebael** : Lonnathrim pilot of the Mithlond ferry

**Círdan** : The Shipwright, lord of Lindon

**Coruwi** : Lonnathrim marchwarden

**Eregai** : Lonnathrim forester

**Falathar** : Falathrim coastwarden; one of the three companions of Eärendil on his voyage to Aman at the end of the First Age

**Falfaur** : server in Círdan's household

**Falfrem** : sailor

**Fânchast** : sailor

**Ferchai** : Laegrim stablehand at guest-hall

**Gaerlas** : Círdan's herald and Falathrim kinsman

**Gaerol** : Falathrim keeper of the guest-hall, kin to Círdan

**Galdor** : councilor

**Gwinnor Tinnath** / **Vingenáro Tinwi** : Noldor gemsmith; in the First Age a follower of Finrod Felagund, and in the Second of his sister Galadriel in Eregion; he was for a time one of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain

**Ithilith** : Laegrim attendant at the guest-hall

**Lagoreg** : Lonnathrim captain of tower

**Limmen** : Sirorn's companion

**Litheg** : someone connected to Lindon's court

**Maedoron** : Falathrim shipwright

**Norneth** : Falathrim gatherer of shellfish

**Ramaeron** : Noldor mason, specializing in sea defenses

**Sercherch** : Falathrim fisherman who sometimes serves in the guest-hall kitchens

**Silalph** : one who wanders in north of Lindon

**Sirorn** : a customer of Veylin's

**Talrui** : Laegrim forester

**Tavor** : Falathrim shipwright

*

Other Fair Folk

**Elladan** (T.A. 130-  ): son of Elrond Half-Elven of Rivendell

**Elrohir** (T.A. 130-  ): son of Elrond Half-Elven of Rivendell

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Creatures of Note

**Craec** : a young raven, attached to Rekk

*

**Auril** : Halpan's bay stallion, a gift from Arathorn

**Blackie** : Maelchon's black workhorse mare

**Buits** : Saelon's dun hobby gelding

**Cloot** : Saelon's skewbald hobby gelding, killed under Partalan

**Coll** : Gaernath's chestnut gelding

**Donnan** : Maelchon's brown workhorse gelding

**Dûnsûl** : Halpan's mount before he left to be a Ranger

**Gwath** : Saelon's high-bred black mare

**Madamenath** , **Mada** : Dírmaen's brown gelding

**Môrfast** : Saelon's high-bred black stallion

**Pegeb** : a roan stallion belonging to Halforod

**Ruin** : Randir's bay gelding

**Rust** : Faelnoth's chestnut gelding

**Sarbôd** : a colt Dírmaen is training at the beginning of 2850

**Tinnu** : Gwinnor's grey mare

**Whitefoot** : Maelchon's workhorse mare

*

**Baude** : Candíl's grey hound bitch

**Luath** : Maelchon's black hound


	3. Leavetaking

_Quhair I wes wont to se hir go_  
_Ryght trymly passand to and fro,_  
_With cumly smylis quhen that I met hir;_  
_And now I leif in pane and wo,  
_ _And brekis my hairt, and nocht the bettir._

_Quhattane ane glaikit fule am I_  
_To slay myself with malancoly,_  
_Sen weill I ken I may nocht get hir!_  
_Or quhat suld be the caus, and quhy,  
_ _To brek my hairt, and nocht the bettir?_

_My hairt, sen thou may nocht hir pleiss,_  
_Adew, as gude lufe cumis as gaiss,_  
_Go chuss ane udir and forget hir;_  
_God gif him dolour and diseiss,  
_ _That brekis thair hairt and nocht the bettir._

\--Alexander Scott, "To Luve Unluvit"

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Dírmaen sat in the tall grasses, sere now, where the shoulder of the headland met the level lea, watching from afar as Saelon waved farewell to the swan-breasted ship, already hidden from his sight by the rock at his back.  Sea-Elves seemed more to her liking than the artful Noldor; or perhaps she was simply glad to see them go.  The fewer folk about her, the better she was pleased.

If he could bring her no other pleasure, he could relieve her of one more guest, unwished for, who had long outstayed his welcome.

There atop the highest sandhill she turned to speak to Halpan, as Gaernath continued to gaze after the Elves, hand shading his eyes.  Able youngsters, both: with her to counsel them, and Partalan's rough skill, these folk had little to fear.  Last night, the lad had regaled the company with the tale of the hunt at the Havens, and little embellishment was needed to rouse envy in Halpan, as eager in the chase as any . . . and something darker in Leod, who quietly drew his enthralled wife away.  Such unsociability would be excused in those so newly wed, yet Dírmaen guessed the cottar's chief desire was to prevent Murdag from regretting her choice of husband.

That bit of commonplace ill-will seemed the gravest threat to the contentment of Saelon's hardy band, but it was not a Ranger's place to combat it.  He had tarried here too long, when need was greater elsewhere.

After a time, Saelon's cousins left her, Halpan calling away the boys who larked amid the sandhills.  Leaving her to the sea she loved.

Love.  No one could doubt her attachment to that restless water, a fierce and obstinate devotion that set all else at naught: the authority of their Chieftain, the bounds of Lindon, the very company of her fellow Men.  Sea-mad, her folk murmured, knowing no other way to explain so queer a passion, though Círdan's herald had scathed them for it.  For the most part, Elves respected her desire to cleave to the shore, though the trespass displeased them; and even Veylin, who mistrusted the waves, upheld her allegiance, honoring it with a jewel that made her preference manifest.

The Dwarf had warned him that she was wedded to the sea, but he had not wished to hear.  How could a woman prefer the cold crash of the waves to the warmth of a man's embrace?  Was it not rather that she had been her own master so long she would brook no other?

He had not wished to rule her, only to relieve her of some of the burdens that had crabbed her generous spirit and protect her from harm, every man's duty to a woman.  Yet she would take nothing from him save meat for the table and a spear in a _raug_ : not counsel, not care, not even an arm to carry her cloak.

The _raugs_ were slain; she had kinsmen enough to hunt for her; she had achieved all her desire by following the counsel of others, and was honored by lords of Elves and Dwarves.  He must not be a fool.  Let him go where he was wanted.

When enough time had passed that she could have paced the slow length of the strand, the sough of the surf soothing her soul, Dírmaen rose and went to find her.

She was standing in the shallows of one of the pools that lay among the rocks that hedged the sand, skirts kilted to the knee, gazing into its crystal depths.  This was the Saelon who had captured his heart: not the high-born Lady who had gone before the great of Lindon with silver starring her marten-dark hair and a dwarven gem at her breast, but the barefoot woman with draggled skirts, fearlessly tramping the countryside for leagues about in search of berry and blossom and root.

You would not know she was Dúnedain at a glance, for she was small and dark, her fair skin burnt nearly as brown as his own . . . but only those who judged women by their dress could think her plain.  Her high brow and the brilliance of her sea-tempered eyes showed her descent from the kings of old, and she moved with the sure grace of a clean-limbed doe.  The strength of her slim hand, clasping his as they danced at Maelchon's houseraising, he would remember until his final breath.  The noble carriage of her head, the sweet scent of herbs that lingered about her—

Dírmaen bit his lip.  He must not torment himself this way.  "Lady."

She startled, staring up to where he stood on the low sandhill, but her surprise quickly flattened to reserve.  "Yes, Dírmaen?  Is something amiss?"

"No."  Not as she meant, aught among her people that required her attention.  Stepping down the shifting slope to join her, he halted a seemly distance away.  "I have come to take my leave."

Had she learnt this inscrutability from the Dwarves?  "Where are you going?"

At least she did not pretend to misunderstand him.  The mismatch of their desires had been made painfully clear when first he spoke his heart . . . and nothing that had befallen since had changed hers.  "Wherever the Chieftain chooses."  He ought to have gone as soon as she refused him—yet she had required escort to the Havens, and since she went, Halpan must stay, so those faithful to her house were not without a guardian.

She was not the one who had bound him.  She had not wished to go.  "We have only just finished a long journey.  Will you not take a few day's rest before you depart?"

Sailing had not been wearisome; a few days would bring not rest, but a return to his customary tasks.  They had managed without him for near a month, and delay would only renew reliance.  "If I must go, the sooner the better: the weather will grown no fairer, nor the days longer."

The ease he required could not be found here.

"If—?"  Saelon shut her mouth on her own question, crooked with dissatisfaction.  "Rian is nearly finished your shirt.  One more day should see it done."

There was an old tale—of whom, he could not remember—wherein a hero's wife put off evil by undoing her day's work each night, so the required garment was never completed.  Should something unexpected arise, one day could easily become two, and two three . . . .  That was why, mistrusting himself, he had left Mada on the ridge below the tumbled stones of the ancient tower, saddled and laden with his scant possessions.  "No, Lady."  Let him go as he had come: unseen, unsuspected.

She regarded him ruefully.  "Argonui will think we did not care for you."

He did not think she cared for him, not so much as her pride.  "I will assure him otherwise," he promised, frowning at the cold resentment in his voice.  He must leave before he came to hate her.  "We have disagreed, but I hope you do not believe I will speak ill of you to the Chieftain."

"No," she sighed, with a half-smile that tore his heart, "you will give him an honest report.  I would not have it otherwise.  If he is displeased, do not you take the blame!"

"I will take as much of it as I deserve."

After a bald silence, she murmured, "You will be sorely missed."

As a horse, when there was one fewer in the stable.  "You will manage, Lady.  You always do."

"Yes," she agreed, mouth wry.  "Yet it will be harder without you.  I am sorry I cannot repay you as you wish."

This was not the candor he had wanted from her.  Bowing his head in mute acknowledgment of the bitter truth, Dírmaen said firmly, "Farewell, Saelon."

"Farewell."

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

And he was gone.  Moving to a sun-warmed rock, Saelon sat and drew her cloak more closely about her, watching Dírmaen stride up the steep slope until he was lost among the craggy tussocks.

Was this a boon or a loss?  Something of each, so intertangled that she did not know whether to be melancholy or glad.  She would miss him.  He was a good man: active and able as any Ranger could be—there, the flick of his grey cloak as he scrambled up the shoulder of the headland, making for the tower.  He must mean to slip off into the hills rather than ride by Maelchon's, where explanations might be called for.

Those he would leave to her, it seemed, unsatisfying though they might be to the hearers.

Saelon shook her head.  Vexing man—though he had vexed her less than many others, until this apparent infatuation arose.  However had he come to fancy himself in love with her?  He did not approve of her independence or her friends, nor sympathize with her attachment to the sea; and she was more than twice the age at which Dúnedain maidens were wont to wed.  Why should a sensible man desire a cross-grained wife of middle age, who could bear him few children and would refuse to remove to his home?  Either he was insincere or out of his wits, neither of which was attractive.  Even if he were sincere, his kin must disapprove the match.  Her own had been unkind enough, the bond of blood notwithstanding—she had no desire to acquire more.

Yes, it was best that he was going.  She would not like to think ill of a man who had done so much for them.

Casting a glance back at the tide pool where a lobster lurked in the rocky crevices, Saelon set aside her efforts to recall the traps the Elves used to catch the fearsome-looking yet tasty creatures.  How was she to manage the loss of Dírmaen?

He had been a tireless hunter, with an uncanny sense for beast or bird.  In the famine time before their first harvest, that had been a blessing indeed, but fortunately he was also a good teacher, honing Halpan's skill and turning Gaernath's youthful enthusiasm into real ability.  He had been a better example to her young kinsmen than Partalan, sober, diligent, and upright, and she hoped his influence would linger long.

Aside from that, however, he had done little that others could not do as well, save the one great deed against the _raugs_.  He had scouted endlessly for peril that never appeared; been a better hand with the horses than Canand, but not much more so than Halpan . . . although no one could mend harness or boots so well.

Were any of them irreplaceable?  In truth, Saelon had been surprised and very well pleased to see how ably Halpan and Rian had managed in her absence.  Oh, there were things ill-done and undone—the bere ought to have all been threshed long since, and perhaps a third of the meadowsweet the lasses had gathered was already musty—but none of it was dire.  They were young and lacked experience; if she were wise, as some said, her own mistakes had made her so.

Dírmaen would be missed most next spring, Saelon supposed, rising and making for the easiest way up the dunes, when Halpan and Partalan went to Srathen Brethil to watch over the families that had agreed to return to their holdings.  If there was to be a lordship to pass on to her brother's son when he came of age, there must be people: empty land was but a hollow patrimony, and the few with her here would not sustain the dignity of their house, long though it had been since they were the sons of kings.  That would leave only Gaernath to hunt . . . but there was ample stock and all the boys had taken to fishing; and since they were only allowed a score of deer, it was better that they waited until a later season, when the beasts were prime.

So too, fewer were immediately dependent on her, she reflected as she gazed across the stubble on the machair, where her cattle and Maelchon's were mingled.  The husbandman and his wife were happy in their house behind the cliff, far enough off that those who had remained in the dwarf-delved hall sometimes went days without meeting any of the family save their boisterous boys.  Muirne and Murdag had taken husbands since they came to this shore, fast friends even before they became sisters through marriage, cheerfully sharing one chamber and care of their husbands' crotchety gaffer.  Unagh still looked after her father, as well as the brother of her _raug_ -slain sweetheart.  When Halpan and Partalan were away, that would leave only Rian and Hanadan, Gaernath and Canand in her household.

If Rian would take charge of most household chores, as was only proper at her age—valuable practice for when she was the mistress of her own house—in addition to her weaving and needlework, Saelon would be free to give more time to herbs and her garden, which would provide wherewithal to trade with Veylin's folk.  Corn the Dwarves got from Maelchon, and would keep getting until their work on his house had been requited; but fruit and greenstuff had greater value, and she could hope for better luck with the wheat and oats Veylin had given her.

Was there anything she might take with her when she went to Gunduzahar tomorrow, save news from the Havens and the message Veylin had entrusted to her?  She needed nothing from the Dwarves at present, but since they were willing, she could trade for coin . . . and then when she went to Mithlond next Yáviérë, she would not be penniless.

Yet before she began spending her wealth in dreams, she must give serious thought to what could be spared for the Chieftain of the Dúnedain.  Saelon trailed her hands in the swift, chill water of the burn beside the track, sending the salt on her skin back to the sea.  Though Halpan had assured her they had been granted ten years' remission of the customary fee for Srathen Brethil—mostly cattle and woolen cloth, yet in quantities currently beyond their means—it was not right that she paid a scot to Círdan for the use of Lindon's land and gave nothing to her own overlord.  What did they have that he would value, that they could spare and would not be too burdensome to carry over the mountains and across the Lune?  For her part, she would gladly send the herbs that only grew here by the shore, the ones she used to trade to Urwen for linen.  She already harvested more than they required for their own needs to take to Lindon; another tithe would make little difference.

Yet there must be something else, something more valuable, a meet offering from kin still noble despite fate's cruelty.  Herbs were a woman's gift, useful for healing or in the kitchen, but Argonui was a man and his province was war.  All she had that a warrior might desire was her brother's helm, an ancient heirloom of their house, and that was not hers to give, only to hold as the symbol of her office and duty until Halmir was ready to—

No, that was not all she had.  Her brother had entrusted her with more than his children and storied arms.  He had also sent horses, the pick of his splendid herds, lovingly bred for speed and hardihood, mounts to match Rangers.  They had not many mares of quality, but they had Môrfast, Halladan's matchless stallion, and even colts out of the common mares would make valuable mounts.  The first crop of Habad-born foals were running on the shore pastures now, while the second already rounded their dams' bellies.  They had no use for so many horses themselves, and Dwarves preferred mounts closer to their own height.  Would it not be gracious to send Argonui several of the colts?  Less than she could wish, perhaps . . . but then so had been the aid they had received from his house.  A handful of horses should be ample return for five seasons of Dírmaen's service.

Satisfied, Saelon straightened and headed up the track, where long-neglected work awaited her.


	4. Better Acquaintance

_As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country_

\--Proverbs 25:25

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No, that would not do either.  Auð frowned, tucking the cloth-end back into the bolt before setting it aside.  The hue was nearer, but a trifle too grey.  Thyrð's coloring called for russet undershades and, in any case, the weave was unsuitable, not stout enough for wear beyond the doors.

She wondered where her younger son and that brother of hers were now . . . what they were doing; whether they were well.  With a huff, she tugged another bolt of woolen from those piled on her cutting table.  Her mind would not stray this way if she had more work, or better company.  Or at least a passable choice of materials!  If she were in Sulûnduban, she would walk down to Tofa's, and if she did not have what she wanted, there was always Litr or Var; and if they failed her, Jorð over in the Second Deep of the South-end would dye any cloth she brought to her satisfaction.

Auð chucked the bolt, no more satisfactory than the last, across the table in disgust.  What a crabbed and miserable place this was!  No society, no variety—

A brisk knock on her door—ordinarily an annoyance—was welcome as a distraction.  Striding across the spacious workroom delved to please her, she called out, "Who is it?"

"Ingi," came the prompt reply.  "News!"

"News?"  She flung the door open to Rekk's prentice.  "What news?"

He was smiling broadly, teeth gleaming in the sable of his beard.  "None bad.  The Lady of White Cliffs has returned from the Grey Havens, and brought Rekk a message from your brother.  Would you care to join us in the First Hall, to hear what she has to tell for yourself?"

Though her heart leapt eagerly at the prospect, Auð hesitated.  "Has she come alone?"

"No, Halpan attends her."

The dark-haired youngster, her kinsman, in whom Rekk took an interest.  "Very well.  I will be there presently."

"Should I send Thyrnir to accompany you?"

Auð fingered her red-gold beard.  It was considerate of him to ask.  "No.  These are friends."

Friends.  Strange—almost as strange as the Men themselves, drawn as wire and naked of face—yet she must harden herself to it.  Veylin and Rekk would not have invited her to remove to this distant delf if they thought she would be in any danger, nor would the Men have ever passed the hidden doors if they had been deemed untrustworthy.  Still, was an acquaintance of hardly two years enough for surety?

In that scant time, the Lady of White Cliffs had given Veylin his life, the use of his fiend-hammered leg, and knowledge that uncovered a wealth of the gems he loved best.  Her kinsman had paid for the privilege of fighting beside Dwarves with the silver token of his people's highest honor.  The nature of their commerce must be considered, as well as its duration.  And Saelon did not scruple to come among them, even alone, unarmed—

Saelon was odd, very odd: peculiar even by the reckoning of her outlandish kind, perhaps mad.  But it seemed an advantageous kind of madness.  Auð hastily rearranged her beard and shifted her rings, removing the most feminine of them.  Should she swap out her belt as well?  She would have to go to the suite for one of the boys' . . . .

Bah.  How would they know a man's belt from a woman's?  She was missing news of Veylin and Thyrð.

When she reached the First Hall, Auð paused in the archway to survey those gathered there and heard Saelon's unmistakable voice, more shrill than those of her menfolk or any Dwarf.  "—has left us."  She was seated in a place of honor before the Grand Hearth, in one of the new, generously proportioned armchairs, her leggy kinsman in another at her right hand.  Everyone—everyone of consequence—had come to meet their guests . . . yet the seat to her left was empty and Rekk stood a little apart, beneath the best lamp, lips pursed as he read a letter.

"When?" Nordri asked, as Auð's elder son offered the woman of Men a crystal goblet displaying the tawny mead she loved.

"Thank you, Thyrnir," Saelon acknowledged before answering the stonemason.  "Yesterday."  Tasting the cup, she looked complacently content.  "He wished to cross the mountains before the weather worsens."

"Wine," Thyrnir murmured to the Man, "or ale?"

"Wine," Halpan replied with a fleeting smile.  "Good ale I can get at home, now that Saelon has returned."  When he had accepted the cup of chased and inlaid silver, however, he frowned over the topic at hand.  "I do not understand why he slipped off as he did.  Farewells need not have delayed him long."

Ketli shrugged and moved to sit on the settle beside the hearth.  "Such is the way of Rangers."

So it was Dírmaen who had gone, the Man who had challenged the Lady's will and disapproved of her preference for Veylin's counsel.  As she moved unobtrusively to the further edge of the throng Auð wondered why the coalmaster should put himself forward with such a comment.  He was not one of the principals in this venture, but a follower of Vitnir, her cousin and Veylin's heir, who had gone with her brother to the Havens and Barazdush.

"Only when need requires," the young Dúnedain very properly defended his elders.

Nordri, next in authority after Rekk and well-disposed towards these Men, charitably wondered, "Did he learn of any ill east of the Lune while in the Havens?"

Saelon shook her head.  "He often spoke of our Chieftain's want of men, and lately of how little he was needed here.  I expect the assurance of Lindon's good will towards us settled his mind."

Proved his suspicions that the woman intrigued with Dwarves against the Elves wrong, more like, discrediting his already dubious judgment.  Auð snorted softly and took a wine-cup as her son offered it in passing.  She gave the Man credit for having sense enough to retreat when outmatched.

As she sipped her wine, she considered this woman who—if Veylin was to be believed—triumphed over the tyranny of her menfolk.  Lady: the title seemed less absurd now, and not only because she wore Veylin's sumptuous sea-jewel at her breast.  Auð had seen her twice before, both times clad in the same sorry gown: a wine-lees shade that did not suit her, cut down, taken in, and turned . . . .  It had been hard to understand her brother's regard for one so poor that she did not know the value of a penny.

Until she learned what coin Saelon paid in.

Was it to honor the sea-beryl that she wore this new gown?  It was plain, without any broidery, but well-cut and a soft blue-green that could have come from the stone itself, making her long, slender form an echo of the gem.  She had some taste after all, it seemed.  Yet she looked chill as a cavern pool against the warm cherrywood and oxblood leather.

"We will miss him this winter," Halpan lamented.  "None of us was so canny a hunter as he, not even Aniel!"

"I do not remember a want of meat the first winter you were all with me," Saelon observed, unmoved.  "We have lost Aniel, it is true, but two large families went east with the Sons of Elrond.  I am sure you and Partalan and Gaernath can provide."

The dissatisfaction was plain on that lean, beardless face.  "I would be easier in my mind when we go to Srathen Brethil in the spring if you had someone more than Gaernath to keep you."

That was Saelon's younger kinsman, hardly a stripling, who at least had a downy fringe of fine red hair upon his chin.  "When the _raug_ —and," she added, with an arch smile, "testy Dwarves came, who aided me but Gaernath?"

Behind Auð's shoulder, Rekk snorted with genial derision.  "I do not remember the lad doing much."  As he went to join their guests, he set the letter in her hand.  "Veylin has had his usual fortune at the Havens, it seems," he informed the company, taking a tankard from Thyrnir's tray.  "The Elves want copper.  When did Veylin entrust the message to you, Saelon?"

"Ten days ago, as they were strapping the last bags on their ponies."

Ten days.  Auð ran a finger over her brother's seal, feeling the tell-tale hairline where the carved stone of his ring was cracked, then unfolded the square of parchment to scan the reassuringly familiar hand.  It was twenty-four days since she had last seen them, nearly a moon.

"They will be in Barazdush by now," Nordri judged, "even if the weather was foul.  Will you tell us of your journey and stay in Lindon, Lady?"

Saelon smiled on the mason.  "Why else did I come?"

While the men, travelers themselves, followed her tale of the road's vexations and pleasures with keen interest, Auð gave her attention to Veylin's letter.  It opened with a bold, businesslike scrawl of tengwar, which any might have read.

_Veylin to Rekk and Auð of Gunduzahar_

_Greeting!_

_May this find you as it left me.  A profitable stay in Mithlond after an uneventful journey.  The Elves are short of copper.  Círdan looks favorably on Saelon and has set a marchwarden of her liking over the north, one Coruwi._

_We will continue our journey as soon as I have set this in the Lady's hand.  Be well until we meet again._

_Yours deeply_

Sanguine; commonplace.  Beneath the elaborated flourish of his _ampa_ , however, were a few lines of small, finely drawn runes in the mode of Sulûnduban and Khuzdul.

_Another marchwarden, Calennae of Doriath, bears malice towards Dwarves and Men; he has been forbidden the lands north of the Little Lune, on either side of the mountains.  The Shipwright has heard my claim and will bring it to his council.  He is not unfavorable._

Auð frowned.  The way to prosperity here was not so smoothly paved as her brother would have her believe.  Men: always they sought to conceal what they prayed were petty difficulties, to preserve their women's confidence and avoid quarrels.  Yet an Elf of Doriath . . . this did not sound petty.  She held the parchment up to the lamp, seeking hidden runes, further clues to the gravity of the threat.

Nothing.

"And what did you think of the Havens, Lady?" Nordri's son Nyr asked.  "I have heard the stonework there is very fine."

"I would not know," the woman of Men readily confessed her ignorance.  "I am no judge of your craft.  The tower, the encircling wall and all the buildings within, not to mention the quays, were a wonder to me—as marvelous," she said, gazing up at the vaulting decorated with stars, and Aðal's intricate friezes, "as what you have here, but in so different a style, and there was so much more of it.  But then," she sighed mournfully, "I would think that once we Men of the West built such towers, and larger havens, and grander ships, and felt downfallen indeed."

"So it is with the Longbeards," Nordri sympathized.  "Khazad-dûm was the greatest of all the mansions of the Dwarves, yet now Elves call it Moria, the black pit.  We Firebeards suffered no less after the wreck of Gabilgathol, what you call Belegost, the Great Fortress, an age and more ago.  Much that was magnificent has fallen into ruin, and many beautiful things destroyed.  But one must stop not making."

Rekk paffed at such woesome talk.  "You used to be proud of your poverty, Saelon."

"Who could be proud of poverty?" she came back with tart promptness.  "I was not poor when we first met: I had all I desired.  The Lady of what remains of Srathen Brethil, however, wants many things Saelon does not."

"Saelon was ready enough to wear a bit of gold in her hair, when she came by some," Rekk reminded her, smiling in that maddeningly self-assured way of his.

"To rebuke you for your ill treatment."

Auð had heard that Saelon was audacious, but to match with Rekk in brusquerie, and on such a topic . . . .  Halpan shifted uneasily in his too-low seat, and Ketli wore a look of bright-eyed anticipation, as if hoping the umber-bearded waterwright would lay hands on the woman of Men again.

Rekk grinned as he did when he spotted an opening while sparring.  "How, then, did Veylin offend you, that such a handsome stone was required for pardon?"

If mischief came of this, she would make him rue it.  The tactlessness of Thekk's brother had been one of the few vexations of her marriage; now that she had lost her treasure, she need not suffer it.  Auð knew the jewel was recompense, but if one had not seen Veylin surrounded by sodden sacks of opal, stinking shreds of storm-wrack in his russet beard, did it not look rather like a courting gift?  There was no denying her brother's attachment to the woman of Men was peculiar, yet Auð could not believe it was so peculiar as that.  How, though, had he explained the jewel to the other men, if he had deigned to do so?  The fire opal lode was his heart's secret, his true passion.

"Why is it," Saelon wondered, with an edge to her voice Auð wished on her shears, "that no one imagines I could come by such a thing creditably?"  She lifted the wave-capped sea-beryl from her breast, clasping it possessively.  "Dírmaen and Gwinnor thought it the price of our alliance, as if one must be bribed to stand by Dwarves.  Now you suggest that I would swallow insult, even from a friend, for the sake of a bauble?"

"That is hardly a bauble," Rekk rumbled, which only hammered home how extraordinary the bestowal was.

The cant of Saelon's head bespoke a conviction that he was the lackwit, and Auð was inclined to agree.  "I chanced upon some news that Veylin was able to turn to account—in what way, I do not know.  You Dwarves are close folk."

"What news?" Ketli asked.

Auð bristled.  Slighting Men was one thing, but trying to pry her brother's secrets—

"I do not think I should say," the Lady replied.  "Ask Veylin when he returns."  She grew chill with displeasure, it seemed, unlike a Dwarf; yet cold could also bite and burn.  "You have not yet been our guest at Habad-e-Mindon, Master Ketli," she observed obliquely.

"No, my work has forbid."

Every Dwarf knew that for a shuffling lie.  Coal tied no man down, particularly when there was none in the earth for scores of leagues about.  Saelon might be ignorant of such matters, but she was no fool . . . as she had shown when Bersa tried to short her in trade.  Nor did she offend all ears by continuing to beat on a bell that rang false; after expressing civil regret, she turned to more congenial companions and was soon chatting with Thyrnir and Grani about Elvish carpentry, with every sign of lively interest.  Rekk began questioning Halpan about his summer journey beyond the Lune.

Once he had finished his ale, Ketli slipped quietly away.

It was natural that he and Vitnir were discontent in this place, Auð allowed, staring into the remainder of her wine, for it provided neither materials for their crafts nor custom enough to keep them.  She sympathized, deeply.  But she could not see what kept them here, save Vitnir's suspicion that Veylin would somehow cheat him of his rightful inheritance by passing most of the profits of this place into the hands of her sons.  Why else were she and Rekk here, if not to enrich the boys?  If Vitnir and his followers were unwilling to make the sacrifices entailed in founding a new delf and do their share of the work, they should not expect to share in the gain.  Let them decide where their fortunes were best served and be satisfied there!

As though thought had summoned, Thyrnir cleared his throat for her attention a few paces off, and when she glanced up, she found he was not alone.  "Auð," her son hazarded, "the Lady wishes to discuss trade with someone other than Bersa.  Would you be willing?"

"What sort of goods?"  Auð considered Saelon.  "If it is foodstuffs, all that is left in Bersa's hands."

"I did not bring anything with me," the woman of Men replied, "nor am I seeking to bargain, at present.  Yet I would like to learn what we might supply you with, aside from corn and berries and the occasional beeve."

"And honey," Auð added, with a knowing glance towards the kitchen, from which Bersa had not emerged.

"And honey," Saelon agreed, with a wryly humorous smile.  "I regret that I cannot provide Master Bersa with enough to sate him, but he must be patient.  Bees take time to multiply, and without their hoard of sweetness, winter kills them.  I must harvest sparingly now if there is to be more in the future."

Auð nodded.  That was sensible.  "Anything that does not travel or keep well would be welcome."  Bersa's skill notwithstanding, their diet here was tedious, although Rekk had brought some welcome delicacies with him from the Shire.  "Fruit and greenstuff; eggs and cream."  The last two were dear even in Sulûnduban, save for the short seasons when lads birdnested and Men pastured their cattle in the high hills.

"I wish I had known, for much of that is passing out of season now.  But we should be able to supply you with some after Gwirith."

"Gwirith?"

"Pardon me—Viressë."

That men must learn different tongues to deal with their customers, Auð had always known; sometimes Veylin and Thekk had amused her with the strange lilt of Elvish, or the accents of Men far to the south and east.  Would her ignorance of such things expose her?  "That would do.  Most of us will be returning to Sulûnduban shortly, to keep Yule with our kin."  Having gotten a closer look at Saelon's gown, she asked, "That is fine woolen.  Is it of your own weaving?"  The linen of her underdress was also nice, not what she had bought before her journey.

"No.  Halpan brought the cloth back from his travels among our folk scattered in the east; but my niece, who made the gown, weaves every bit as well."

Auð pursed her lips, considering.  "Would she have something suited to harder wear, in a rust-touched strong green?"

The woman of Men smiled, perhaps thinking of the opportunity to trade woolen for linen.  "Most of what she weaves of late is stout stuff that will keep the weather out.  She has none of that color, but I have been teaching her dyestuffs, and she enjoys the craft.  You are welcome to visit us, to see what she has and give us a better idea of what you mean by a strong green."

Saelon had just pointed up Ketli's unfriendliness by reminding all that he had not accepted her ready hospitality—did she think Auð was of similar mind?  So far as Auð knew—or could be told from Saelon's speech, though her discretion she had shown—the Lady did not know she was a woman.  That was entirely proper . . . but liable to give a false impression.  "It is not right that we enjoy your hospitality so much more than we entertain you in return.  Could not you and your niece come here?  It would be easier for me to show you the kinds of cloth I would like."

Behind her smile, which she hoped was not offensively fulsome, Auð was dismayed by her own recklessness.  How had it come to this, that she should invite a stranger to their halls?  Would the danger—to the delf—be less if she ventured to White Cliffs?  What would the men think?

"Rian would like to see your fabrics, I am sure," Saelon replied, her courtesy as careful as Auð's, "but you must not judge our manners by my conduct.  It is long since I cared about my reputation, and my menfolk have resigned themselves to my singular behavior, but I must not lay my niece open to aspersions.  I know you are folk of honor," she assured her, "but not all Men do."

Auð bowed.  If a Man had suggested she bring a dwarf-maiden into their stronghold, her reply would not have been so candid . . . or polite.  "I am sorry we cannot come to an agreement," she said with as much frankness as she dared.  "I have heard much of your worth from my kin and would like more trade with you, but I cannot come to White Cliffs."

You could see the questions in the Man's keen eyes, grey flecked with a hue that matched the sea-beryl about her neck; yet she did not ask them.  "Then I will bring some samples when next I come.  When do you leave for Sulûnduban?"

And so Auð began to understand how her brother had fallen into intimacy with this odd, pragmatic woman of alien race.

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Notes

**_Ampa_** : the name for the tengwar character representing "v".

**"mode of Sulûnduban"** : Dwarves have a tendency to tinker with the Cirth, or runes, changing the sounds represented by the characters and even adding new characters.  Tolkien mentions two different modes used among the Longbeards, one associated with Khazad-dûm and another with Erebor ( _LotR_ , App. E.ii).  I have assumed that the other kindreds have their own modes.


	5. Gracious Lord

_Here are your waters and your watering place.  
_ _Drink and be whole again beyond confusion._

\--Robert Frost, "Directive"

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Dírmaen swore and wiped the wet from his face.  The door was shut, and he did not know how to open it.

The rain had begun to fall yestereve, at first no more than a louring grizzle that matched his mood; but it had been pissing down since midmorning and the chill was deep in his bones.  He must have a better shelter tonight than a length of sodden wool and a whinny bush, and within this low scarp lay a fine, dry chamber.  He knew this was the place: the rock bore the scars of the _raugs_ ' attempts to dig them out.

He fared no better than they.  No lip, no catch, not even a crack one might pry.  Dwarven magic, beyond his ken.

Slapping the stone in frustration, he turned back to Mada and mounted.  If this was closed to him, he must push on to the glen below.  It was dim as dusk already; no moon or star would relieve the blackness after sunset, and he did not know this country well enough to find his way blind.  There was a house less than a league away, on a knoll overlooking the river—on the far side, of course, and the water in spate, with all this rain . . . but how could he get wetter?  It would be a roof, for horse as well as rider, and there would be wood for a fire, even if he must burn the benches.

They reached it, despite the treacherously sliding stones of the ford, while there was still a grey glimmer in the air, enough to see that the door of the long, low house stood ajar.  Dírmaen frowned; he was sure he had shut it behind him when he left, but that had been a year ago, as he scouted the desolation of Srathen Brethil.  Yet now that the fell things that had slain Saelon's brother and driven out his people were dead, brave souls might venture here and travelers other than he seek shelter.

Still, they might have closed the door.  The dim stink of fox mingled with the must of rotting thatch, and it was as well that the floor had been flagged inside the door, where the beasts came through to the byre.

By fate's fickle favor, the wet had not gotten into his tinder, and once his cold-stiffened fingers coaxed sparks into flame, there was light enough to see better.

More than foxes had denned here.  Someone had already burnt the benches, save one and a stool; two sprung links were all that remained of the pot-chain; and the staves of a shattered pail lay along the moss-chinked planks of the wall.  The burning, Dírmaen reflected, fingering the charred curve of a trencher-end, might have been need . . . but why, then, had the splintered staves not been put to the fire?  And who would tear down the chain, which had still borne its kettle a year ago?

Not Orcs, or the destruction would be worse and the place befouled.  Nor a drover, wandering with his herd, for it was senseless to spoil a shelter one might use often, the weather being so chancy in these hills.  Halpan and Partalan had passed this way, though they would hardly damage the surviving goods of those they wished to return to their homes.  Who else would abide in this land, haunted by fiendish memory?

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It took near a fortnight to come to Argonui, once he had crossed the Lune.  Brandin, patrolling near the ancient dwarf-road north of the Emyn Uial, pointed him south towards Lake Evendim; there, rumor led to Fornost.  A day shy of that place, he chanced upon a message-rider who had left Argonui in the Weather Hills, where Dírmaen found the grass about Weathertop trampled by many horses.  Following the hoofprints of the finest beasts across the eastern tail of the South Downs to the Greenway, he came upon the moil of a skirmish, so fresh that rain had not yet washed the blood into the earth.  He was puzzling which trail to follow, the one making for Sarn Ford or the one doubling back to the South Downs, when Maethron, seeking the bandits who had fled, happened upon him and set him right.

Collies barked as he rode up to Halnaeth's holding, and one of the men who came out to look was not a shepherd.  He was Dúnedain, tall and dark, with the star on his grey cloak, but Dírmaen did not know him.  "Well met, Ranger," the man greeted him as he drew Mada to a halt.  "How can I aid you?"

He was young, perhaps newly joined.  "I am Dírmaen, son of Dûnthand, and I seek our chief."

The unfamiliar Ranger did not name himself.  "Is your news urgent?"

Dírmaen considered him closely, stroking Mada's neck.  Was he wary or rude?  "No, nor ill.  I have been more than a year on Lindon's shore and wish to report, that is all."  So long as he could get something hot to eat and a flagon of ale, he would not mind waiting, or even riding further tomorrow.

"Sebbi!" the Ranger called to one of the shepherds.  "Show him where to stable his horse!"

By the time he had seen to Mada and his tack, the nameless Ranger had returned.  "Come with me," he said, swinging Dírmaen's saddlebags over his shoulder.

A friendly gesture, though he would have liked it better if he knew the man.  The youngster led him not towards the hall, but Car-e-Dineth, built for Halnaeth's father when his new wife did not agree with his mother.  A small place, tucked back in the shelter of the beeches that gave this steading its name, it was now used chiefly as a guesthouse at feast days . . . or for passing Rangers.

When Dírmaen saw Forodirn, Argonui's sworn brother, mending a bridle by the door, he knew he had reached his journey's end.

"Come!  Have a seat that is not a saddle," Argonui invited, rising as he entered to press his own jack into Dírmaen's hand.  "By Elendil, you have been run ragged!  What brings you in from the west?"

Cider: this was better than ale.  With a sigh of mingled satisfaction and regret, he looked up from the empty cup.  "Peace."

Argonui glanced over his shoulder at the two who kept him company.  "No wonder your father has lost so many to Círdan.  Yet mine run the other way!"

"Not all," one of the Brethren of Rivendell reminded the Chieftain, raising a jug from the bench beside him with a questioning arch of his dark brow.  "More cider, Dírmaen?"

"Please."

"So the Lady Saelon has come to terms with Lindon?" his twin asked as he poured.

Dírmaen hoped someone had occasion to address one of them by name soon, so he would know which was Elladan and which Elrohir.  "Yes, she has."

Argonui settled back onto his leathern stool.  "Arador, bring more stew and bread.  What terms?"

So that was Argonui's son?  Dírmaen took another draught of cider as the young man withdrew: the heir must be new-come from his fosterage in Rivendell.  Dutifully he told over the hides and pelts, down and herbs that Saelon had taken to Mithlond, and when he had finished, the Chieftain grunted.  "Will they be able to pay?"

"They already have.  The scot was due at Yáviérë."

"And Veylin," the twin with the jug asked.  "Has he also come to an agreement with Círdan?"

"I do not know.  He went to the Havens as if there was no dispute between them, and the Lord treated him courteously."  Dírmaen did not understand: that some Elves hated and many scorned Dwarves was plain, yet it did not seem they were required to requite Lindon for their trespass, as Men were.  Saelon had told him Dwarves had some rights in Elvish lands . . . but he had not believed her, thinking her gulled by partiality.

"Veylin . . . .  That is the leader of the Dwarves who helped you slay the _raugs_?" Argonui asked.

It would be nearer the truth to say he had helped the Dwarves, for they—including Veylin, lame though he was—had done most of the killing and provided suitable weapons for the Men.  "The Lady Saelon's neighbor and ally, yes."

Argonui raised doubtful brows.  "Ally?  To a woman?"

He did not know her, or he would not speak so.

"Should you ever meet our grandmother," the twin nearer the hearth warned dryly, "I beg you not to take that tone."

"The Lady Galadriel is exceptional," the Dúnedain chieftain allowed.

"So is the Lady Saelon, in her own way."

"Veylin son of Vali," his brother added, "is a chieftain among the Firebeards and, like all Dwarves, a shrewd judge of worth."

"What no one can explain to me, Elladan, is what value a Dwarf could find in her, or her impoverished people.  Now that the _raugs_ are slain, who are they allied against?  Not Lindon, it seems.  Me?"

Dírmaen shook his head.  "No, Saelon is not unfaithful."  Though she gave credence to Veylin's charge that Arathorn had neglected them, sending Rangers rather than corn, she acknowledged the Chieftain's authority.

"Then why has she still not brought her people over the Lune?  Or to Srathen Brethil?  Will she not even meet us halfway?"

How could he explain, when he did not understand himself?  "She will not part from the sea."

Argonui gave a jaded snort.  "So I have heard."

"If Círdan has not sent her back to you," Elrohir said, passing the Chieftain his jack, "it may be wise to leave her there."

"Why?"  A long pull at the cider did not lessen Argonui's look of sobriety.  "Is she favored by the Lord of Waters?"

Elrohir gave one of their _peredhel_ shrugs, graceful ambiguity.  "Who can say, save perhaps Círdan?  She makes no claim.  Some say she is touched, yet I found her wits sound enough."

"Her temper left much to be desired," Elladan recalled, setting another length of wood on the fire.

"The corn was nearly in their mouths, after long famine," Dírmaen pointed out in Saelon's defense, "and malice came to a head among the women once you arrived.  There was less to provoke her after you took Urwen and Lis away."

Elladan, who had tended the Dúnedain matron after her dramatic collapse, wondered, "What has become of Urwen?"

Argonui huffed and rolled his eyes.  "Do you think I have nothing to attend to, save the giddiness of women?  I can hardly spare attention for my own wife."

The knock on the door signaling Arador's return was a welcome interruption to such talk, and the Brethren rose to take their leave once their latest foster-brother had set out Dírmaen's meal: a trencher of still-steaming mutton stew, loaf and butter, apples and cheese, as well as another jug of cider.  When the farewells were finished and Dírmaen sat down at the board, Argonui asked, "Is there anything else you desire?"

"News of how you all fare," he said, drawing his knife to cut the loaf.  "There on the shore, I sometimes felt that the Last Battle might come, and I would not know."

As he breathed the welcome scent of wheaten bread and dug into the hearty stew, Argonui told him of the bandits they had just routed, who had been plaguing the Greenway.  There had been a murrain among the cattle of the Emyn Uial and a drought east of the Weather Hills; wolves out of Rhudaur and rumors of Orcs across the Glanduin.  The south was the most troublesome quarter these days, though Rainind and Faelchol had been slain by a band of outlaws on Coldfell—Maegvir and his band had discovered their lair and killed half of them, yet the rest had scattered.  Hopefully they would go to ground for winter, and do little harm before they ran them down again.

Sopping up gravy with the crust-end of the loaf, Dírmaen observed, "I stopped in Srathen Brethil one foul night on my way here.  The empty house I sheltered in had been ill-used since I was there the year before."

Argonui swore.  "Another reason we must get folk back in that valley.  It is too easy for masterless men to slip across the Lune, and the Elves do not seem to watch their border so far north."

"That is because their realm ends at the Little Lune, this side of the mountains.  North is dwarf-country."

"Is it?" the Chieftain asked, brows knit, then chuffed.  "You would know, I suppose!  Can we hope the Dwarves will make an end to them?"

Dírmaen reached for an apple.  "Only if the outlaws are rash enough to waylay some."

Sighing, Argonui refilled his jack and drank.  "Someone will have to be found to scout Srathen Brethil before spring.  Halpan will never coax his people back if the first to return are set upon by outlaws."

"I will go," Dírmaen offered.  "I have been through the glen thrice, and know it passably well."  Better than any other Ranger, since none of the Dúnedain of that march had been abroad in the Chieftain's service when it was beset, and Halpan had withdrawn to refound the strength of his shattered house.

Argonui leaned back against the wall, considering him over the leather rim of his jack; though not as sharp, his dark eyes were more penetrating than Saelon's.  "Son," he finally said, addressing Arador, "here is one of the chief challenges of ruling Rangers.  There is hardly a one who will not run beyond their strength at the slightest need.  What do you think of this one's condition?"

The heir smiled, perhaps apologetically, at this.  "I find the cheese goes very well with the apples, Dírmaen," he said, sliding the platter his way.  "Did not a party of Rangers venture to Srathen Brethil to seek the _raugs_?  And with my grandfather?"

Having been in Mithlond only a month before, Dírmaen recognized this as the suggestive courtesy of the Elves, still hanging about him after his fosterage in Imladris.  "Yes," he allowed, taking a slice.  Why did everyone think he needed feeding up?  "Halgorn was in both parties; Maegvir and Dornadan have also been there."

"Hmm.  Halgorn," Argonui mused, "is chasing rumors of trolls in the Ettenmoors.  It would be good for him to turn his hand to something more commonplace for a time.  Now, tell me of Lindon."

As he cut slices of crisp new apples and the cheese whose bite did complement them very well, Dírmaen spoke of the slender yet formidable strength of the Elves, their defenses and their ships, and the friendship they had—for the most part—shown the Lady and himself.  Arador asked several shrewd questions about their numbers and force of arms: though still allies in name, it had been generations since meaningful aid had come to them from Lindon.  "They are hoarding what might they have," Dírmaen judged, "though for what, they will not say."

"Elrond says," Arador murmured, "that Círdan sees further into the future than any other this side of the sea."

"So tales tell," Argonui agreed.  "Yet little good it did Arvedui."  He was silent a while, brooding over his cider.  "This Habad-e-Mindon, that the Lady Saelon will not leave . . . tell me of that."

He did: the high white cliffs set above a fair lea, its seaward edge fenced with sandhills; the ancient ring of stones on the hill beside, all that remained of a tower that had guarded against the Enemy in the Elder Days; the sea-carved caves where Saelon had dwelt alone, and the hall Dwarves cut to repay her for saving Veylin's life.  He spoke of how bountifully bere grew on the shell-sweet lea and the mildness of the seasons, so that there was ample grazing all year; of the wealth of fish and fowl and game . . . and of the terrible storms whose winds blew a man down, lasting for days in winter.

"It sounds a fair place, save for the storms."  Arador looked into the jug to see if there was more cider, and smiled ruefully at its emptiness.  "Perhaps the Lady is merely fox-mad.  Shall I fetch another?"

"No; we must be in the saddle at dawn tomorrow," Argonui sighed, then grinned slyly at his son.  "But you should go and spend time with our host, to reacquaint yourself with our people.  You can get more drink there, and he has daughters well worth looking at."

"I should seek a wife already?" Arador came back, feigning consternation, as he collected the tray and began loading it with empty jugs and dishes.

"Seeking is not finding," his father reminded him.  "A Ranger must keep an eye out.  Go," he repeated, more soberly.  "Take a little merriment while the chance offers.  It comes seldom enough, outside Elrond's vale."

When Arador had left them, Dírmaen and Argonui sat in easy silence, nursing what was left in their jacks until the fire began to burn low.  Argonui gave a mighty sigh and heaved himself up from his folding stool, stepping out briefly into the night; Dírmaen heard him speak to Forodirn, low and indistinct through the wall.  Ordering the night watch, most like.  Gazing at the broad bed in the corner, he wondered idly if it was already fully bespoke.  No matter—after the last weeks, he would not scorn a blanket beside a well-warmed hearth.

But when he went to spread one there after his own trip outside, Argonui, who was drawing off his boots, frowned at him.  "What are you doing?  This is not one of the Pony's vermin-ridden pallets, I assure you."

"Arador and Forodirn—"

"Forodirn is an old campaigner, and the lad must not be dainty.  By thunder, I remember a night when we were right glad to fit half-a-dozen into a bed smaller than this!"

Dírmaen gave a droll snort and brought his blanket.  "It must have been chilly."

"Bitter," Argonui agreed, then his smile faded.

The memories were not too grievous, Dírmaen hoped.

They had settled in, Argonui's back to him, and he was drifting off, lulled by the hiss and plink of the dying fire, when his lord asked, "What is the true reason you left Habad-e-Mindon?"

It was like a knife in the dark.  "True—?"

"Too many paths cross there to leave it unwatched: Dwarves, Elves, Men . . . .  Why should I not send you back?"

Back.  Dírmaen threw his arm across his face.  "The Lady and I do not agree."

"And you have retreated?"  Argonui's low voice echoed harshly off the wall.

Retreat: yes, it must appear so.  "I love her, and she will not have me."

The silence was a thing, like the blackness between the roof-beams.  The sigh that finally broke it was little louder than the coals on the hearth.  "When were you last among your people, Dírmaen?"

How long had it been since he had visited his parents?  Before Dollchíll was wounded at the Hoarwell's southern ford . . . .  "Some four years."

Argonui turned and cursed the straw in the tick, punching it down.  "Go home," he grunted, rolling back into his place.

"Home?"  His heart had been yearning that way, but surely—

"Wherever that may be, for you, save the road.  And I do not want to see you again until Spring Day!"

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Notes

**"the ancient dwarf-road north of the Emyn Uial"** : Tolkien never mentions such a thing, but I have conjectured that a road ran from the northern Ered Luin to Mount Gundobad in the Misty Mountains.  Gundobad, where Durin first woke, was revered by Dwarves and the place of assembly for the seven kindreds early in their history; however, Orcs have repeatedly captured and used Gundobad as their own "capital" since Sauron invaded Eriador in S.A. 1695 (HoME XII: _The Peoples of Middle-Earth_ , "Of Dwarves and Men).  Since Dwarves do not seem to have reinhabited Gundobad or made heroic efforts to keep it out of Orcish hands, I assume it was desecrated (and desacralized) when first captured, and the road little used thereafter.

**Car-e-Dineth** : Sindarin, "house of the bride."

**_Peredhel_** : Sindarin, "half-elf."

**Touched** : in the head, mentally unbalanced.

**Giddiness** : while this now means no more than silly or frivolous, in Middle English _gidy_ meant "mad, foolish," and in Old English, _gydig_ —akin to "god"—meant "possessed, mad."  So it could well apply to both sea-obsessed Saelon and hysterical Urwen.

**The Last Battle** : Arda's Ragnarök, when Good and Evil finally settle things and the world is destroyed in the process.

**Wheaten bread** : the staple grain among Saelon's folk, like the Iron Age Scots, is bere or barley.  When people have both wheat and barley, they make bread from wheat—which has a finer flavor, higher protien content, and gluten (without which bread will not rise)—and drink the barley as beer.

**Greenway** : the old North-South Road that connected Arnor and Gondor.

**Murrain** : a livestock plague.

**Rhudaur** : when the North Kingdom was split into three separate realms by Eärundur's sons in T.A. 861 (paralleling the division of Charlemagne's empire among his three grandsons in A.D. 843), Rhudaur was the northeastern portion.  It was the first to fall to Angmar, the few surviving Dúnedain (none of Isildur's line) ousted by evil Hillmen in the fourtheenth century, and in the thirty-first century, Strider observed that "a shadow lies still upon the land" ( _LotR_ , "Flight to the Ford").

While much fanfiction places the Dúnedain base of operations during the late Third Age here, in the Angle (on the basis of a single manuscript note of Tolkien's), I do not follow this interpretation, mainly because I believe Dúnedain sociopolitical systems were decentralized, for strategic as well as economic reasons.  We know very well that Tolkien thought better of some of his ideas, and without evidence for further development of this one, I have given precedence to practical plausibility.  If anyone wishes to discuss this further, please drop me a line in the forum associated with my stories at HASA.

**Glanduin** : a tributary of the Gwathló or Greyflood, the southern border of the North Kingdom.

**Coldfell** : high, rugged moorland between the northern Emyn Uial and the Lune, about 50 leagues east by south (101° 15′) of Srathen Brethil.  I see this region as being akin to the Anglo-Scottish Borders, and have borrowed the name from a place in the [northern Pennines](http://backpackingbongos.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/dsc024831.jpg?w=500&h=375).

**"masterless men"** : in feudal political systems, the only men without masters were those who had opted out of society, i.e., outlaws.

**Arvedui** : the last king of Arnor († T.A. 1975).  When he had been defeated by the Witch-King of Angmar and took refuge in abandoned dwarf-mines in the northernmost Ered Luin, Círdan sent a ship to the Icebay of Forochel to rescue him—but it was crushed by ice and he perished.

**Spring Day** : Tuilérë; the _enderi_ or middle-day falling on or about the spring equinox.


	6. Blue Devils

_Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die._

\--Oscar Wilde, _The Importance of Being Earnest_

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It was not that he did not love Sulûnduban, Veylin reflected as he gazed across the wind-washed moor to the aloof peak, more majestic than any tower built by hands, its snow-hoary head resolutely proud above rock beaten to toughness in the primeval quarrels of the Powers.  Refuge in the grievous days after the breaking of Gabilgathol, bulwark against the Enemy's icy malice, cradle and tomb of his fathers for three-score generations . . . as well accuse him of disregarding his mother, or neglecting the bone within his flesh.

He was glad to see the end of their journey; but his heart did not yearn towards the mansion beneath as it once had.

"Gah—sluggard beast!" Regin berated his pony as it hesitated to scramble over yet another of the stony outcrops that paved the uneven floor of the dale.  "Get on!"  An open-handed clout on its shaggy shoulder started it forward again, and the king of the Firebeards glanced back at Veylin, the bright copper tassel on his hood jinking in the torrential blast like a hooked trout.  "I would make better time afoot than on this nag.  Wherever did you get so game an animal, Veylin?"

"Soti sold it to me.  He said it was Shire-bred."  Veylin stroked his mount's sorrel neck as it plodded doggedly onward, as dutiful as himself.  Tuppence more than the usual tanner it had cost him; but he would not make better time afoot, knee-sprung as he was, even on this rough ground.

"I will give you nine pence for it."

That would be one way to keep him at home.  "A shilling."

Regin's ruddy brows lifted behind the flapping edge of his amber hood.  "That hide is too rusty for gold."

"I might trade for another as trusty," Veylin allowed with a shrug.  There was a witticism there, rust against trust, but he was not in the mood for levity.

"I have always found Shire-beasts as gluttonous as the Beardfoots who breed them," Holl declared.  "Hill ponies are thriftier.  My cousin Steði," he told the king, "will have many on offer in the spring, fresh off the fells and unwearied by work.  He would give you a good price and, if you speak to him before the roads are passable, your pick of the beasts."

"How good a price?" Regin wondered.

Veylin left them to their horse-copers' talk.  In his opinion, a new-broke hill pony, stiff-necked as any Dwarf, made an excellent pack beast . . . for coal or iron, corn or cloth.  He would not risk his neck or his gems on one.  A runaway might cost more than all the beasts Steði had ever sold.  Give him even-tempered Shire ponies, and he would not grudge them a few bolls of oats to tide them over the winter.  Besides, feeding made them easier to catch.

How much of his sense of value, sometimes so different from that of his fellows, was due to the greater worth of his goods?  Small economies rarely paid, with gems and jewels: haste or overlong hours at the workbench led to slips that irreparably damaged stones; scrimping on packing risked wear that took the gloss from a piece.  Unless he chose to descend to gimcrack rock crystal and colored glass in gilded lead settings, he could not afford to put off his clients with cheapness—those who bought the fine stones he loved to work desired to flaunt their wealth before peers as knowledgeable as themselves.  Must one be pinch-penny to be Khazâd?  His hoard had not shrunk since he inherited from his father.

He must not let the subtly freighted allusions of his brother chieftains prick his conscience: he had done nothing wrong.  Some of them—he did not glance towards Holl—were jealous of his success; among the Broadbeams others muttered that he was rash, fearful that he had turned Lindon's unworldly westward gaze back to the mountains.  Three great lustrous pearls, perfectly matched and with a wonderful copper cast, had reminded Regin that more came from Elves than strife and secured his king's support for the Gunduzahar venture.

Freygr had wept as he handled the tablet of sea-dyke fire opal cut for him, two thumbs broad and long, comparing it to the one that must now lie beneath Smaug's belly in Erebor.  He had often described the piece to Veylin in wistful, heart-sick detail, knowing the younger gemsmith, whose tastes were so near his own, would share his grief as well.  In return for the counterfeit of restoration, the venerable master had given a goodly chunk of marvelous fire agate, a handful of fine peridots, and a star sapphire that Gwinnor would lust for.

If he gave the Noldo _mírdan_ a sight of it.  Their rivalry had been more a game than in earnest, each glad of the opportunity to acquire stones beyond their usual markets . . . until Veylin made it plain that he would not cede the mountains to Elves merely because the sea did not respect its shore.  Gwinnor, no fool, correctly surmised that there was something near Gunduzahar worth disputing; perhaps he was vexed with himself for not finding it long before.  He ought to be: an Age of the world, he had had, to pick the coastlands clean.  That he could not be bothered to do so was one more reason why he did not deserve its treasures.

Nevertheless, the Elf had been a reliable buyer, and seller, too.  Should his resentment go beyond provoking words, Veylin would miss his custom and the keen play of their competition.  It had been a refreshing change from the tedious wrangling of his own folk.

Blowing a gusty sigh through his whiskers to join the wind, Veylin allowed that he must be tired, to be so out of humor.  It was over two years since he had been on the road for more than a few days at a stretch, and now he had been traveling for almost a dozen weeks.  A fortnight on the way to and in Mithlond; the bustling business of the West Council; three weeks up the Blue Mountains, pushing to reach home in time for the New Year feast . . . .  He kneaded the unrelenting ache in his game leg and measured the remaining distance with his eyes.  Half a league.  Half a league, and the long stairways down to the Third Deep.  Hopefully the party from Gunduzahar had already safely arrived, and Auð or Thyrnir made up his bed and laid a fire in the grate.

The glad greetings of the outguards lifted his spirits a little as they neared the mansion, and one would truly have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the welcoming throng along the glinting, granite-paved way up to the Front Gate.  Veylin shook his head at Trur's two lads, perched on a slip of a ledge above and grinning with cocksure cheek: they had a fine view, to be sure, but with the wind what it was, they ought to spare their waving to hold tight!

A brassy fanfare of horns and the thunderous rumble of drums sounded as Regin swung gratefully off his pony and mounted the curve of steps to the final landing.  As his brother chieftains followed suit, Veylin frowned and scanned the crowd.  Had none of his people—?  Ah, here came Logi, Lof's youngest, thrusting his way through the press with a box under his arm.  "Welcome!" the bronze-bearded graver greeted him, smiling with uncomplicated warmth.

"And well met," Veylin finished, heartfelt.  He drew his blackthorn stick as Logi set down the box and took the sorrel's bridle.  "At your service!  How have you prospered since I saw you last?"  Getting out of the saddle was harder than getting into it, with dignity at least, and he was grateful to have his step shortened.

"Wonderfully," Logi replied, his smile growing even wider; as he stooped to retrieve the box, he confided, very low, "I have a daughter."

Already?  They had only just celebrated his wedding before the company set out for Gunduzahar.  Veylin clapped him on the shoulder.  "That's auspicious!"

A final flourish of horns cut off further felicitations, and as Regin said a few words to acknowledge the splendid welcome and invite everyone to his chamber for a cup and news from the West Council, Veylin stumped up the stair to join Thjalfi and Holl alongside the king.

Through the massive arch of the gate and past the doors of mithril and steel, scribed with runes of power and prohibition—the vestibule was cacophonous, already packed before a way had to be made for them—and up a brief flight of steps through shafts of sunlight from the windows high above to the great hall of the king.  Lof found him there, as he crossed to the dais.

"Your family has been blessed, I hear," Veylin said heartily, to forestall the chief of his ealdormen.  "Beina is pleased by the new grandchild?"

As he had intended, the greybeard's somber look lightened.  "Very much."  Yet the tenacious old fellow would not be led astray.  "And you?  The new delf is profitable?"

"Extremely."  It was good to say, a heartwarming rebuttal against criticism.  "Please tell me that you have all fared well here."

The elder graver's gaze was long-suffering, skirting reproach.  "Gladly . . . if it were true.  Most have," he allowed.  "We have missed your counsel."

Veylin sighed and leaned on his stick.  "Is there anything that will not keep until morning?"

Lof pursed his lips, most unpromisingly thoughtful.  "No."

"Then let me refresh my wits with Regin's good ale.  Bespeak breakfast in my chamber for tomorrow and bring your fellows with you, and we will see if we can clear the old troubles away before the New Year begins."

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Veylin allowed that his hopes had been over-sanguine, barring the one that his suite would be readied for his arrival.  Thyrnir had remained in Gunduzahar, one of the few left to guard and keep it until the rest returned in the spring, but Auð—the only other he trusted with a key—had kindly seen to hearth and sideboard and bed.

He must find a few hours before the New Year's festivities began this evening to shut himself in his workshop and swap out the clasp-stone on the emerald and fire opal belt he would give her.  The emerald he purchased in Barazdush was a better hue and shape than the one he had used, and he owed her much for her labor and her sacrifices this passing year.

Unlike others of his kin.  Veylin gazed impassively down his table at Vitnir, who was forking the last piece of ham onto his plate.  When he had asked Lof to invite his fellows to a breakfast council, he had meant his fellow ealdormen, and them only.  It was easier to find agreement when a council was small.  Someone had invited his heir to attend as well . . . which was not an ealdorman's prerogative.  Ordinarily the chieftain's heir—his son—did not participate in councils until the chieftain's beard grew grey, unless it were a time of war.  A hundred years, a chieftain had, to establish himself in his people's hearts and craft his legacy to them, yet it had been barely ten since his father had departed for the Maker's halls.  Must he contend with Vitnir, only a quarter-century his junior and narrow of vision, for the rest of his days?  Looking around at the soberly replete faces of the elders of his line, Veylin wondered who had a preference for Vitnir's views, or a want of confidence in himself.

Not Nordri, he was certain.  Gunduzahar was the principal lode of disagreement between Vitnir and himself, and the mason was entirely of his mind regarding the venture.  Even the grievous death of his younger son had not weakened Nordri's commitment, and he spoke eagerly of the works to be carried out there when they returned.  Nor did Veylin doubt Lof.  He knew his innovations often grieved his father's favorite councilor, but the deepest of those griefs was that he had not wed and got a brace of sons.  Lof saw the failure of elder lines as proof of the decay of their race, and deplored that the chieftaincy must pass to Nali's scions.  Even if Veylin outlived Vitnir—and Vitnir's elder brother Vitr had been slain by the fiends, like Nordri's son, before getting his own heir—that dignity would pass to Vitnir's young son, or a more distant agnate dwelling in Barazdush.

Bál and Harðr seemed unlikely candidates for intrigue: both were as unimaginative as they were industrious, workaday and worthy as rock salt.  If he set a chest of copper and another of cinnabar before them and swore there was more to be had by the coast, they would be satisfied.  Aldinn was fretfully old, loathing any change and often doubting the wisdom of a chieftain he considered an inexperienced youth . . . yet he was hardly likely to favor Vitnir, who was younger still.

Which left the last and youngest of his ealdormen, little more than a dozen years Veylin's senior.  Skaði, who was topping up Harðr's tankard with small beer as they commiserated on the recent rise in the price of barley, seemed the likeliest culprit.  His son Skani was Vitnir's prentice.  Veylin had found the son—and believed the father—more nimble-minded than Vitnir, and could not see why they should prefer to follow the ironmonger.  Yet his father had warned him that clever Dwarves sometimes found a shrewd chief an impediment to their own interests.

Taking a last mouthful of bitter yet bracing black coffee, Veylin set his mug aside.  "So which are the most pressing disputes?"  They had regaled him with a whole litany during the meal, though most were unexceptional matters best dealt with at the next kin-court.  A few involving folk of other lines must go to the quarter sessions, while others might be put right by a few words in private, such as Megir's complaint that Gledi's daughter was leading his son on for naught but gain.

"Roðin and Tof have still not honored Rof's contracts," Bál told him, taking out his pipe and filling it.

"Why not?" Veylin exclaimed.  This had not been in their long list.  "They agreed to the division of his estate in Nénimë."  Rof had traded in pigments, and a variety of craftsmen had contracted with him for rare and exotic colors: painters and dyers, glaziers and enamellers.  Having long ago fallen out with his nearest kin, Rof had declined to leave clear instructions on how to apportion their heritance.  Rancor, it seemed, was his true legacy to his cousins.  Veylin now appreciated that they deserved it, but he resented being repeatedly drawn into their bickering in hopes of relieving the just wrath of those still waiting for their colors.

Bál shrugged and rose to take a light from the hearth.  "Roðin retracted.  I blame that Broadbeam woman he's courting."

The better part of three days he had spent last winter, hammering on the spiteful pair until they agreed to be sensible.  Even if they despised each other, did they crave the ill-will of all Rof's clients as well?  "I will send for them as soon as the New Year's festivities are over," Veylin promised.  The morning after, when they were both likely to be the worse for drink.  He felt that pounding on the table and shouting loudly would do his humours good.  "If Roðin will not honor his agreement, or come swiftly to another, I will impound all Rof's stock, satisfy those who can produce their contracts, and auction the remainder at Midsummer.  If they must wrangle, let them wrangle over the gold!"

A chieftain was as a father to his line.  If they had been children in truth, he would allow that they might require so much of a father's attention.  And he could have disciplined them out of hand, instead of laboriously persuading them to be pragmatic, as Dwarves ought to be.  "Is that the worst?"

"At present," Lof answered, reassuring as ever.  "There is one other that is . . . complicated."

"It is customary to save trifles for dessert," Veylin pointed out dryly.

Lof's sidelong glance towards Nordri only deepened Veylin's apprehension.  "A roof-fall has displaced three families, who are claiming damages from Narvi on the grounds that he expanded his quarters without due consultation."

Veylin frowned.  Yes; that might ramify in many directions, as the damage could have done.  "Has Regin sent a mason to survey the collapse?"  When it came to structural matters, his own authority was limited: any work that was done had such far-reaching effects on what was above and below that only the king could ensure collaboration.

"Yes," Harðr said.  "He found Narvi's work at fault."

As Veylin tried to recall whether any of Harðr's folk housed near Narvi's suite in the upper and lower deeps, Nordri rumbled, "I find that hard to believe.  No one knows the stone of that reach better.  Who did Regin send?"

"Bunir."

Nordri snorted.  Veylin hoped it was no more than skepticism; Narvi was one of Nordri's many cousins and had prenticed under his father.  "I will speak to him, and hear his reasoning.  If I am convinced, I will do what I can with Narvi."

At least one of his ealdormen was willing to tackle his own kin, rather than passing the chore off to him.

"A shame you were not here at the time," Skaði observed, setting down his tankard.  "He would have accepted your word, I am sure."

"That is not the root of the problem," Bál dismissed.  "Anyone might misjudge the strength of a stretch of stone.  Narvi's fault lay in not speaking to his neighbors and the king beforehand.  Altering the delf is too weighty an undertaking for any Dwarf alone, no matter how skilled."

"True," Veylin agreed.  "But—"

Aldinn sniffed.  "But?  I do not know what you—" his look of narrow disapproval included Nordri as well as Veylin "—get up to in that scrape of yours, westward; perhaps you can delve haphazard, if the stone is good.  Maiden stone is often forgiving.  So venerable a place as this, however, will not tolerate disrespect.  If due rites and customs were not observed, what could be expected but ruin?"

Out of respect to so venerable a Dwarf, Veylin did not say the first thing that came to mind.  Or the second; or the third.  He could not imagine a successful mason like Narvi neglecting the necessary rituals.  Surreptitious enlargement of one's living space, however, was far from uncommon.  So strong was the attachment to the ancestral hearth and neighboring kin that people were reluctant to change quarters even if a favorable lease were available; almost no one delved fresh in one of the lower reaches, inconveniently far from tradesmen and the social commerce of great hall and gallery.  Therefore, when blessed by more children than usual or craving the appearance of greater prosperity, they thinned their walls and raised their vaults.  The timid ground away little by little; the clever had deep reliefs cut, and then found them unattractive; all prayed that their alterations would not upset the delicate balance of tension and pressure that supported the stone and their lives.

"Narvi spoke to the king," Nordri asserted, incensed.  "I was there, and Regin was favorable.  Do you think Narvi would risk the fine for unauthorized work, or the loss of Regin's commissions?"

Veylin drew thoughtfully on his beard.  Regin would confirm that, or not, if asked.  "And his neighbors?  If he spoke with them, can he produce witnesses or written understandings?"  Here was a place where stories might differ.  If consent had been given, the families must bear the cost of repair or removal themselves.  A friendly private understanding might well go to the wall in the face of such expense.

Nordri shook his head, offended by the necessity of proof.  "I will ask."

Pushing back his chair and taking up his stick, Veylin rose.  "I thank you all for your service to our line while I was abroad, and look forward to seeing you and yours in merrier mood this evening, when the moon brings in the New Year.  Now, which families have been put out of their homes by this misfortune, and where can I find them?  I want to assure myself that they do not suffer unduly in this festive season."  And hear their stories for himself.

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Notes

**Sulûnduban** : the outward parts of this dwarf-mansion are based on Suilven, which is has been described as one of the most spectacular mountains in Scotland.  Check it out [here](http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/webdav/site/GSL/shared/images/education_and_careers/RockCycle/RocksAroundBritain/Suilven%20xtrawide.jpg).

**Tuppence** : two pence, or pennies.  For details on money, see Coinage in the [Dûnhebaid Dictionary](http://astele.co.uk/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=7676&SPOrdinal=1).

**Tanner** : six pence; half a shilling.  Barliman Butterbur paid Ferny 12 pennies for Bill and gave Merry 18 pennies more in compensation for his other ponies; we are told that when the ponies were returned to Barliman, he "got five good beasts at a very fair price" ( _LotR_ , "A Knife in the Dark").  This is the only detailed monetary transaction I know of in Tolkien's work, and I have used it to anchor the prices given in my stories.

**Shilling** : a coin, originally gold, worth twelve pence.

**Beardfoots** : a Dwarvish name for Hobbits; this is a term of my own invention.

**Boll** : a unit of measure equal to six bushels.

**"New Year feast"** : in _The Hobbit_ ("A Short Rest"), Thorin says the Dwarvish year began on "the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter."  In T.A. 2849 (consults appropriate moon phase table: since Tolkien used A.D. 1941–2 for T.A. 3018–19 [ _The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion_ , pp. xlvi–xlvii], I have used A.D. 1772), that would be on the seventh day of Girithron (November 27th in the Gregorian calendar).

**"runes of power and prohibition"** : something similar to what was found on Khazad-dûm's East Gates, which opened onto Dimrill Dale.  Unlike the "friendly" West Gate to Eregion, these bore "Runic inscriptions in several tongues: spells of prohibition and exclusion in Khuzdul, and commands that all should depart who had not the leave of the Lord of Moria written in Quenya, Sindarin, the Common Speech, the languages of Rohan and Dale and Dunland" (HoME XII: _The Peoples of Middle-Earth_ , "Of Dwarves and Men," n. 8).  No trespassing!  Authorized personnel only!

**"the Maker's halls"** : according to the great Elvish loremaster Pengolod, who dwelt for a time in Khazad-dûm, Dwarves believe Aulë "gathers them in Mandos in halls set apart for them, and there they wait, not in idleness but in the practice of crafts and the learning of yet deeper lore" (HoME XI: _The War of the Jewels_ II.13, "Of the Naugrim and the Edain" §2).  This is so they can help Aulë remake Arda after the Last Battle.

**Agnate** : a patrilineal kinsman; one whose relationship can be traced exclusively through the male line.

**Kin-court** : an assembly for the purpose of adjudicating disputes among members of the same lineage or sept, presided over by the lineage's ealdorman or sept's chieftain.  Quarter sessions are royal courts that meet four times a year.  These would have jurisdiction over disputes between members of different septs and serve as appellate courts.  I expect Dwarves have a sophisticated legal system—there was no reason for Thorin to give Bilbo a written contract unless there were institutions to ensure that the terms were honored—but Tolkien provided no details, and these specifics are my own, extrapolated from real-world "clannish" societies.

**Removal** : in the British sense; moving to a new home.


	7. Persuasion

_. . . after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and constant attachment, and all that can be said of one's happiness depending entirely on any particular person, it is not meant--it is not fit--it is not possible that it should be so._

\--Jane Austen, _Sense and Sensibility_

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When the music stopped, Mereth laughed with breathless delight and tugged him towards the pine-wreathed doorway.  "Air!  I must have a breath of air.  Let's step outside for a moment!"

Although he would also welcome a respite from the sweltering din of Beldir's festive hall, Dírmaen hesitated.  "Where is your cloak?  It is bitter outside."

She shrugged carelessly, drawing him determinedly on.  "Do you think we women less hardy than you men?  A minute or two will do no harm."

Dírmaen would not have let a horse stand uncovered in such weather, if it were as heated as they.  When they passed his brother, who had just come in with Candíl, arguing passionately about hounds, he snagged the cloak from his shoulders.

Outside, the night was crystalline.  Mereth gasped at the shock of the cold, and Dírmaen swirled Taratal's cloak around their shoulders, quickly leading her a little away from the raucously tipsy bucks who would not bear the cold long enough to reach the privy.  "Oh!  Thank you," she murmured, drawing the vair-lined leather close about her—and herself to him.  She cast her gaze upwards and smiled at the bright stars, whose light glimmered in her eyes.  "So beautiful a night is worth a little chill, is it not?"  She turned her face to his, her breath a silver mist before her lips.

Lovely.  It would be sweet to set his lips on hers, to keep the chill at bay; their breath already mingled.  Yet her headlong ardour made him uneasy.  "A little," he murmured, catching the hands that sought his breast beneath the cloak.  "Come, let us go back.  I should not want to face your brother if you took ill."

Even her pout was pretty.  "My brother," she sniffed.  "Are you not the _raug_ -slayer?"

"That is no reason to abuse his trust."  She was making matters worse, not better.  He meant to find a wife, not be ensnared.  Stepping out from beneath the cloak, he offered his arm.  "Come."

Mereth allowed him to lead her back inside, and when the heat smote them, he slipped Taratal's vair from her slim shoulders.  "Let me return this, and I will fetch you a cup of mead."  Thin-lipped, she nodded.

Was that a stifled snuffle?  Foolish, to dash out into the freezing night in no more than a gown cut for dancing.  Perhaps he should bring her mulled ale, instead.

Predictably, Taratal was by the casks.  "Well?" he demanded with a knowing grin, pitching his cloak onto one of the nearby benches.

Dírmaen frowned, for Candíl, too, waited as if for a huntsman's tale.  "Well, what?" he cast back, irritably.  "It is too cold outside for clipping."

"Clipping is the only thing that might keep one warm, on such a night," Candíl laughed, smirking.

"Two cups of mulled ale," Dírmaen told the serving woman behind the board.  "I will not throw myself into the first net spread across my path."

"Mereth's is hardly the first," Taratal pointed out.

"If memory serves, you led the lasses a lively chase."

"Only until I found one who could keep the pace," his elder brother dismissed.  Eight years wed, with two young sons and a big-bellied wife snug at home, he clearly felt authorized to dispense complacent advice.  "Yet you must leave them hopes of catching you, if you want to see their mettle!"

"Why else am I fetching her ale?"  Turning his back on their amused faces and taking the cups—warming to hands still chill—Dírmaen set off to find Mereth, skirting the wide, whirling circles of the current dance.  He finally caught sight of her huddled in a corner with her two bosom friends, Brennil and Finnelrin.  Brennil, glancing up as if she felt his gaze, gave him such a look that he pulled up short.

Mereth peeked his way, hand over her mouth; she appeared to be weeping.

Dírmaen stood where he was, a cup in each hand, feeling foolish and dismayed.  Against the wall where the matrons sat, his elder sister Nellind, who had been watching her girls flounce and flirt in the dance, shook her head in despairing contempt.

For a moment longer he hung undecided, then veered away to find Racheron, who was always glad to see a cup of ale.  Let him talk a while of chases and quarry he understood well, until his certainty returned.

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For a wonder, they were all together in his father's hall at Gellnen this Mettarë and Yestarë, the first time since Nellind wed and went to her husband's people at Harnan.  She had convinced Laegadan that their two remaining girls would profit by widening their acquaintance in a different part of the Downs; her only care was that her Ranger son might find a little cheer for the holiday, and her only disappointment that her eldest had been unable to persuade her husband to leave his kin down Fornost way, so Mother could see her two great-grandchildren.

At the moment, Dírmaen did not much regret their absence.  He had drunk rather more of Beldir's spiced ale last night than he had intended, and though he had laid long in the bed he did not reach until midwinter's late dawn, he thought Dunech's three children—with the addition of Míliel's two youngest boys—enlivened the house more than amply, as they put their gifts to good use.  The spirited clatter of wooden swords in the passage; a perilous passage through painstakingly arrayed, ankle-high Rangers and Orcs, and he finally reached the sideboard, well-spread even at this untimely hour with cold dishes.  Yet it might have been worse: Taratal's wife being so near her time, their two were home with her; and his brothers, by birth or marriage, and Míliel's two older boys were not about.  Since the weather was not foul, they were probably riding to Taratal's pack, looking for something to restock the larder after days of feasting near a score.  Aside from the children, there were only the women in the hall, quietly companionable over their stitchery about the long hearth.

They were a remarkably large and cheerful family, for Dúnedain.  Dírmaen had begun to wonder if it was truly necessary for him to add to it.

Mother looked up from her broidery to see if he was well, and he gave her a smile as he took up a plate, to reassure and hopefully turn any questions.  She must have been satisfied, for when she spoke, he was not the subject.  "Is anything amiss with Merilin?"

His next-to-eldest niece was not with her mother and younger sister.  "Oh, no!" Nellind laughed, looking very content.  "Only fatigued, from dancing so much with Beldir's eldest.  I do not suppose," she wondered, "you would like her to stay a while longer?  Laegadan is impatient to return home, but there is such a liking between her and Bregol.  It would be unkind to put so much distance between them."

Mother smiled, sagely gracious.  "Of course she may stay if she wishes.  I would be glad of her help restoring the house to order after the holidays.  And you, Dírmaen," she finally asked, glancing his way with a deeper curve to her smile, "did you have a companionable evening as well?"

"Yes."

Nellind chuffed and rolled her eyes.  "Racheron was not the companion Mother meant," she pointed out.

Míliel, who had stayed home with Mother, stopped sewing to gaze at him forlornly.  "Oh, Dírmaen . . . .  Have you fallen out with Mereth as well?"  His younger sister dwelt near enough to know some of the history of his search for a wife.

"There have been others?" Nellind exclaimed.

"I have not fallen out with her," Dírmaen insisted, slapping a slab of venison pasty onto a plate.  "I do not know why she is upset with me."

"What did you do to her, when the two of you slipped outside?" Nellind asked, suspiciously.

"Nothing!"

"Ah," Míliel murmured significantly, and Nellind looked on him with sisterly disdain.  "Such a fool you can be, Dírmaen!  What is wrong with the girl?"

"Nothing is wrong with her.  Mereth is a lovely, sweet-tempered girl."

So was Alphil, and Limchen.  He found the lasses he met likeable enough; a half-dozen quickened his blood.  Any of them would make a satisfactory wife.  Indeed, he was fortunate to have so much choice: the third son of a second son of a third son had little to offer a woman except the honor of his name, the dignity of his blood, and a house even smaller than Taratal's, in a bleak angle of the dale.

Satisfactory.  Aye, as his brothers would take whatever fell their way for the kitchen's sake.  Yet they were all rascal beside Saelon.

Nellind allowed him to get halfway through his meal before prodding at him again: a grand talker, she could never bear his silences.  "Perhaps," she suggested to Míliel, "Mereth was too forward.  Was that her fault, brother?  You men are keen hunters; it must be disconcerting to find yourself the quarry.  But you are well worth catching, you know."

"If that was her fault," Mother observed quietly, "you can hardly expect him to confess it."

"I do not see the use of maintaining so fine a sense of honor," Nellind came back frankly.  "It is not as if it will win him a woman of high birth."

No.  It had not.  If anything, his overnicety had cost him such a one.  Stomach closing, he shoved his bench from the board and stalked from the hall.

Outside, clouds were coming in, making the day drear but less bitter.  Glad of his new cloak and sheepskin jerkin, Dírmaen walked about the steading with no fixed purpose.  The stillness was eerie.  No one moved in the yard, carrying wood or forking hay from the ricks for the beasts kept in stable and byre; not even the fowl were underfoot.  He had to remind himself that it was only the weather and the season that made it seem desolate: the bondsmen and servants were keeping snug within, recovering from last night's celebrations or making merry anew, doing only the chores that were needful.  Ought he go to the stable and take out Sarbôd?  The colt was working up well, but the exercise would do him good . . . and perhaps they would happen across Dunech and the others—

No; he did not want to face more gibing from Taratal, no matter how good-natured, and maybe Míliel's husband as well.  Kicking a well-gnawed bone back towards the midden, he wandered down to the beck, which gurgled quietly between ice-rimmed banks, crossing on the stepping stones before climbing the low rise beyond to gaze up and down the dale.

Tum Melui was a fair place in summer, lush green between the dark, heather-clad arms of the high downs; even now it had a muted beauty, wanly verdant beneath snow-capped heights and thickly flecked with white-fleeced sheep.  Thin plumes of smoke marked the scattered tofts of the Edain.  The bleating protest of sheep caught his attention: looking down into the croft of Bosa, their nearest neighbor, Dírmaen saw his father standing tall beside the round-headed sokeman, both of them watching as a shepherd sought to pin one beast from the flock.  Curious, he headed down the knoll to join them.

Some of the ewes, it seemed, were poorly in a way Bosa had not seen before, so he had appealed to Father's long experience.  After examining their feet and tongues, Father assured him that it was not the murrain that had struck in Bosa's grandfather's time, nor the one that felled cattle to westwards that spring, then advised better feeding and a watch against further decline.  Leaving the sokeman with hearty blessings for the new year and a bracing clap on the shoulder, Father headed homeward and Dírmaen fell in beside him.

"Have you ever seen the like?" Father asked, when they were well away.

Dírmaen shook his head.  "Is there cause for alarm?"  If a plague broke out among the flocks as the ewes neared their time, it would go hard on folk; even his family, though they kept almost as many cattle as sheep.

Father shrugged, the lynx lining his hood rippling in the fitful breeze.  "I doubt it, yet who can tell with sheep?"

They continued a ways in easy silence.  "How," Dírmaen asked on impulse as they neared the beck, "do you keep on good terms with Mother?"

That earned him a sidelong glance: beneath his silver brows, Father's eyes were still Ranger-keen.  "You have quarreled with Mereth?"

No doubt he had heard the story when the others broke their fast.  "No, not quarreled."  Dírmaen tried to imagine that doe-eyed lass raising her dulcet voice, and failed.  "Cares sit too lightly on her for that."

"Or she would have you think so," Father replied judiciously.  "Some men find that pleasing in a wife."

"You did not."

Father's smile quirked; from the expression in his eyes, as much at his recollections as Dírmaen's words.  "You think your mother was never blithe?  Mereth is less than half your age, son; you must expect some frivolity.  Marriage settles a lass: she has cares enough then, especially if her husband is a Ranger.  Sobriety will come, do not fear.  Enjoy her light-heartedness while you may."

True enough . . . .  Yet he had not answered his question.

When they reached the yard, Father turned aside to speak to his own shepherd, leaving Dírmaen adrift once more.  Should he return to the hall?  No, not before the hunters returned, bringing fresh matter for conversation.

His whole day had been disordered by last night's follies, leaving him crabbed and idle.  Or was hunger the cause of his ill mood?  His stomach reminded him that he had eaten little since yesterday; yet supper was still hours away—  The kitchen, of course!  Why had he not gone there straight away?  After weeks of tempting his appetite, Heiu would not refuse him a bite to keep the inward wolf at bay.

She did not, and so Mother found him there, sitting on a stool in the corner like a cosseted child, licking brambleberry juice from his fingers.  "Ah, here you are," she said, smiling with relief before chiding in jest, "Do not spoil your supper, now!"

"No, Mother."  For a moment he dreaded she would recall how spare he had been when he returned in Hithui, but the moment passed and she turned to give Heiu directions for serving supper and orders for tomorrow's dishes.

After consideration, Dírmaen helped himself to one more slice of tart, being careful not to dribble; the purple could never be got out of his fawn tunic and breeks.

When Mother had finished her business with the cook, she stopped beside him.  "Have you made up for dinner?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes.  Thank you, Heiu," he said, mindful of his manners as a favored lad ought to be, and bent to retrieve his jerkin and cloak from beside the stool.

When they stepped out of the kitchen's cozy warmth to cross the few paces to the hall's side door, Mother murmured, "You must not take Nellind's words to heart.  She would not chaff you so, if she loved you less."

"I know," he assured her, taking her arm.  Nellind had always been a domineering sister, ready to put her littlest brother right.  It had been good to see her again after so many years; but he was glad she and her husband would depart the day after next.  She had nothing but courting on her mind, with two daughters of an age to wed, and no sympathies for a man's part.  For her son's sake, Dírmaen hoped a score of years would alter her views.  "She has always been shrewd to find where I am galled."

Mother, too, was shrewd.  "This Lady Saelon . . . .  You have not said much of her as a woman."

Had he betrayed himself with his abrupt departure after Nellind's fling about high-born women?  "What can I say of one who is more a lord than a lady?"  It had been impossible not to speak of her.  When he first came home, he had to defend her against the charge of neglect . . . and how could one tell of the _raugs_ without bringing her into the tale?  So extraordinary a story—a Haleth, in this late Age—excited keen interest, though he told it very ill.

"She is proud, then?"

Dírmaen sighed.  "As proud as one can be, who digs her own garden."

Mother halted beside the door with a puzzled frown.  "Digs her own garden?  She does not trust her servants to do it to her satisfaction?"

"That may be.  But she has not your household, Mother.  Her only servants are a cowherd and a kennelman.  The young wives of two of her bondsmen and the daughter of the third do much of the meaner work, while her niece weaves and sews.  You must not imagine her a fine lady."

"I have no picture of her at all."  Drawing him to the bench beside the door, she sat down.  "What is she like?  Dark-haired and grey-eyed, one presumes."

Dírmaen looked down on his mother, who waited expectantly for him to sit beside her and answer.  He did not wish to speak of Saelon, but if he refused, she would believe she had discovered the cause of his discontent.  "Yes," he agreed, settling down on the weather-worn wood.  "Though she is small for one of the Dúnedain."

"Does she have Edain blood?"

"If so, it has not dulled the noble light in her eyes.  I know none keener among mortals, save Argonui's."  If he desired to conceal his admiration, such praise might not be the wisest course; still, it was the truth.

"What is her age?  She cannot be young, if her brother's children are youths."

No.  Thirty years too late, Saelon had cried, when he declared his love.  "No older than Nellind, I would guess; near my own, perhaps."

"And she never wed?"

"Not that I have heard."

Mother pursed her lips.  "How queer, particularly if she is high-born!  Does she have a tragic tale of love lost?"

What else could creditably excuse a woman from marriage?  "All one hears is of her love for the sea."

"The men of Númenor loved the sea, but that did not prevent them from taking wives."

"Have I not heard it said—" by the hearth within, but a few evenings back "—that men are as jealous as stallions?  I have never heard of a Númenórean who shared his wife with the sea, but the woman who objected to sharing her husband thus was so singular we tell the tale still."

That earned him an amused tsk.  "You should not eavesdrop on your sisters' dissatisfactions!"

Dírmaen raised his brows.  "How else is a man to learn what vexes a woman?"

"The best way," he was told, "is to ask her."

"If," he replied, "she will be candid."

Mother sighed.  "True.  Yet too much candor is often as bad as too little.  I am sure many Númenórean wives disliked sharing their husbands with the sea, but were too wise to say so.  One cannot have all one's will once wed—man as well as woman!" she warned him.  "Accommodations must be made, and graciousness is the best promoter of peace."

Peace.  One of the two things Saelon desired . . . yet the other was to be free.  "And if one will not parley?"

Mother's dark grey eyes regarded him thoughtfully, trying to understand his difficulties from what he was willing to say, as he might puzzle out an elusive beast from its spoor.  Surely by now she knew it was not the biddable Mereth who baffled him.  "There are folk, women as well as men, who delight in battle, never happy unless striving to triumph over someone: neighbors and kin, if no better enemies are to hand.  You are not such a one, Dírmaen.  You have foes enough, and require a restful place to come home to.  Find a woman who will make that for you."

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Notes

**Vair** : the fur of the a [grey variant of the European red squirrel](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/3281431991_0bdcbfb818.jpg?v=0), usually found around the Baltic; the striking contrast between grey back and white belly when pieced together made it a favorite among nobility.

**Mettarë and Yestarë** : the last day of the passing year and the first day of the new year in the Steward's Reckoning (Yule is the term in Shire Reckoning).

**Rascal** : for the true huntsman, the noblest quarry was the [stag ](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/2935467036_8f86b13e4f.jpg)(male red deer, _Cervas elaphus_ : North American readers, picture wapiti elk, which are the same species).  To be fit quarry for a hunt in the classic manner, a stag had to be at least a "hart of ten"—have ten points on his rack of antlers.  Any other deer, whether a younger stag or hind, was "rascal," annoying beasts that distracted the hounds from their proper prey.

**Tum Melui** : the northernmost dale on the eastern slopes of the North Downs, Dírmaen's ancestral home.  The name has been borrowed from [Rosedale ](http://www.fiveacreview.co.uk/img/rosedaleview1.jpg)in Yorkshire.  For those who care about such things, I equate the North Downs with the North Yorkshire Moors (including the Cleveland and Hambleton Hills).  This would put Fornost—"Northern Fortress"—in a position not dissimilar to York, the northernmost Roman legionary fortress in Britain.

**Tofts** : a toft is the collection of buildings that made up an English medieval farmstead.

**Croft** : an enclosed piece of open ground associated with a toft, between it and the cropland.  Most were used as pasture for selected livestock, although some may have included a garden.

**Sokeman** : a free peasant farmer, holding land in return for rent or service.  Socage required attendance at the lord's court.


	8. Interior Designs

_Genius . . . has been defined as a supreme capacity for taking trouble.  . . .  It might be more fitly described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and keeping them therein so long as the genius remains._

\--Samuel Butler, "Genius"

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Sút leaned back with her tankard, grey eyes bright with devilry.  "All this grumbling over your Gunduzahar," she chuffed.  "Elves and Men and the sea--  Will you be returning there, or have you had enough adventure?"

Passing Hlin her wine, Auð sniffed.  "Adventure?"  Sút had best not cast stones, not after that mad sally beyond the doors she had instigated in their youth.  "The greatest peril, once it was plain I need not take an axe to Siggr after all, was the lack of female society.  The delf is very snug," she maintained, pouring another goblet for Makt, "but I missed your company."

So, though her hopes were slim, Auð meant to try to convince at least one of them to join in the venture . . . or perhaps she would not go back west with Veylin and Thyrd.  She had still not found a fit opportunity to speak frankly with her brother about her discontentment in Gunduzahar.  At first, he had been too pestered with settling the disputes that had sprung up here during his long absence: Dwarves were quarrelsome folk, and keeping them peaceable was no simple task.  Veylin was an excellent chieftain, better than their father in some ways because more persuasive--he could explain why the course he advised would be more profitable than another in terms a blockhead could understand--yet it was easier to mend a rift when it was small, and during the three seasons they were in the coastlands, some had widened almost beyond repair.

Then, just as his patience was no longer so tried with shoring up other's bonds of amity and kinship, the desire that he stay in Sulûnduban, or stay longer, grew more audible.  Auð thought the latter an excellent proposal; Súlimë was early to cross the mountains, with a pack train so large as theirs.  Still, she saw he smouldered, silently, beneath such talk: he knew his duty, but a great hoard of flaming opal lay locked in Gunduzahar and his hands must ache to hold it.  Nothing good would come of complaint now, no matter how well-meant.  Perhaps she could mend her dissatisfactions herself, rather than add to his burdens.  She would try, in any case.

"Tell us what the delf is like," Nordri's wife Eigsa asked, taking a slice of plum-cake.  "One never knows how seriously to take the men's brags."

"You needn't fish," Auð assured her, with a knowing smile.  "Your men have made an excellent job of it.  I begin to think a mason must have virgin stone to show his talents to best effect."

"I would not mind hearing something," Makt allowed, with a sigh of appreciation over her wine.  Like Auð, she was a widow, but not so well-provided and finding it difficult to properly support her lad on the slender profits lampwrighting brought.  Gunduzahar already had a lampwright, it was true, but Auð thought Laufir less content there than herself.  "Is it much like here, only smaller?"

"Yes and no."  Auð took up her own wine-goblet and gazed on the warm red sandstone of her parlor walls, the cut faces of the pebbles within providing a gleaming speckle of variety.  How well she remembered the boys fingering them, as they first learnt the different stones!  Thyrd always had to be watched, lest he try to pick out the little piece of needle-quartz in the corner.  "It is delved in basalt, very dark and coarse, though pocked and threaded with copper.  Which," she told Hlin, "is why your husband has stayed so long away."

"Bersi has shown me the metal," she replied, the deep corners of her placid smile betraying her satisfaction.  "He is excused."

"Is there any silver?" Sút asked.

Auð looked to Hlin, who would know better than she.  After hoisting a questioning, sand-colored brow--for Sút was a silversmith--Hlin said, "A little, I understand, from the latest vein."

To take them to safer ground, Makt observed, "If the stone is dark, lighting must be an expense."

Eigsa caught a stray crumb before it vanished in her honey-gold beard.  "Nordri says they have faced the great hall with a lovely limestone from White Cliffs."

"Yes: a fine, pale stone, which takes carving beautifully.  Aðal is almost as besotted with it as Nordri.  The hall is four bays, the pillars a dozen paces high, and space has been left to expand.  The vault and pillars have been left dark, and the floor paved with a grand red pegmatite flecked with black and white.  After some persuasion, Siggr deigned to furnish it in cherry and oxblood leather."

Hlin snorted and gave her head a wondering, indulgent shake.  "You Firebeards and your passion for red."

"It pleases Veylin, and Rekk does not care.  As you know, I prefer green, and they have found me a granite that color, to face my suite."

Sút, who found such talk tedious, leaned forward for another currant biscuit and murmured, low as scandal, "Is it true that there are Men at White Cliffs, who are ruled by a woman?"

"Ruled by a woman?" Makt exclaimed, shocked.  The other two, who had surely heard of the Lady from their husbands, merely looked to Auð, silent, eyes lit with furtive fascination.

Auð took a considering sip of wine.  She would not deprive her friends of such titillating gossip, but she must take care not to disturb them overmuch, or they would never accompany her.  "Yes.  She has come to Gunduzahar to trade."

"She has come to Gunduzahar?" Eigsa gasped, meaning an outlander had passed its defenses.

"She has come to Gunduzahar?" Sút gaped, meaning the woman had gone abroad.  Hlin's lack of astonishment told Auð much of the confidence between her and her husband, and Makt was chewing perturbedly on her chestnut whiskers.

"And I have met her, thrice.  She is quite strange," Auð said candidly.  "Eccentric even by the peculiar standards of Men, it seems, but well-mannered and a shrewd woman of business.  All her kinsmen save two youths were slain by the fiends, and so she has taken their affairs into her own hands."

"There are no men of fit age at all?" Makt murmured, near sympathy.  She knew the grief of loss and the labor of managing without a partner.

Auð was not clear on this point herself.  "You have heard that there are different kinds of Men, some high and some low, and the lower look to the high as if they were their elders?  The Lady is of the higher kind, descended from the Kings of the North.  There are men of full age among her charges, but they are of the lower kind, and it seems Men consider it fitter for her to rule."

"She has no distant kinsmen, who dwelt in other mansions?"

"Men do not live in mansions," Eigsa reminded Makt.

Makt chuffed.  "Elsewhere, then, wherever that might be!"

"Yes, their chieftain sent men to bring her and her charges to their fastnesses beyond the Lune, but the Lady believes them safer beside the sea, in the hall Nordri delved into the cliff for them, and the land richer.  Also," Auð concluded, to tip the balance, "the Lady has come to appreciate Dwarves as neighbors."

"I should hope so, if they give her a sound hall to dwell in," Sút said.  "That was your brother's doing, was it not?"

"To repay her for his life and leg, yes."  Would that Thekk had not been rent beyond repair; Auð would have given more than a few chambers cut in stone for the salving of her love.  "Those trades, and others since, have established a confidence between them, which is why the Lady is welcome in Gunduzahar . . . and willing to venture there.  Her own hospitality is, I understand, generous indeed, and the men did not wish to get behindhand."

"But . . . do we not hear our men constantly grumbling about the untrustworthiness of Men, of their ill dealing and disrespect?"  Makt's husband had been a traveling blacksmith, no great craftsman but hardworking and stouthearted, willing to take his skills to settlements others passed by.  From the little his kinsmen had found when, long overdue, they sought him, they believed Orcs rather than Men were to blame for his death.

All the women nodded or murmured agreement, for who could not repeat a dozen tales of bad faith, broken promises, and scorn?  "Although," Sút allowed, "some of the Longbeards speak well of the Men of Dale, who dwelt hard by Erebor, their trade enriching both."

"It would be pleasant, I think," Hlin mused, "to have a good market on your doorstep, so the men were not so often, nor so long, away."

"That is what Veylin hopes for, Nordri says."  Eigsa shrugged.  "Yet the Men at White Cliffs are very poor and very few, and though they work hard to improve their fortunes, even our grandsons are not likely to find much profit there."

Sút gave an amused snort.  "Not yours, perhaps, but Hlin's and Auð's may do very well in the coastlands, whether the Men prosper or not."  She eyed Auð's new belt with pointed appreciation.  "That is handsome fire opal."

"Isn't it?"  Auð sat up straighter: the gold and opal blended nicely with her beard, but the splendid clasp-emerald should not be obscured.  "Come," she wheedled, "cannot I convince some of you to keep me company, even if only for a season?  A share in the venture is not inconsiderable.  Hlin, Eigsa--your husbands and sons will be there . . . and if a brother is this grateful, how much more will they be?  A new delf, Makt, needs more lamps than one well established.  And you, Sút--you are not afraid to venture outside the mansion, I know!"

Her lifelong friend laughed, but the raven beard that looked so well beneath her silver jewelry did not hide all her blush.  "Will you not allow that my wisdom has grown with age?"

"You are serious?" Hlin asked, soberly.  "This is not a jest?"

Auð met her gaze.  The Broadbeam was not a dear friend, nor one of her own finding; Veylin's friendship with Bersi had brought them together.  Yet while Hlin was not a merry soul, she had a great store of patience and made little fuss.  "No, I am in earnest.  Will you come to Gunduzahar?"

Hlin dropped her eyes to the lees of her wine, lips pursed.  "I will consider it."

"I can ask no more," Auð, replied, taking up the flagon beside her.  "Except . . . more wine?"

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"That is not," Thjalfi rumbled, halting before Girni, "what Rekk heard you say."

Girni, perched on the edge of the bare oaken seat, glanced uneasily at Rekk.  The umber-bearded waterwright stared back, arms crossed and eyes flat, waiting to be called a liar.  "Your wassail was very good this year, Thjalfi.  I may have drunk more than was wise."

Bogi, in the chair beside him, shut his eyes in disgust, breath hissing out as if he were cold-quenching his anger.

Stung by the speechless rebuke, Girni snapped, "I told you no good would come of Narvi's workings!"

Keeping silent in the corner settle, Veylin rubbed his thumb over an already smooth knot on his cherrywood stick.  No, no good had come of them.  He doubted Girni would get much credit for his sagacity, but Narvi would be relieved to hear that the gravest of the remaining claims had crumbled.  As Bogi began recriminating his wife's brother for drunken garrulousness, Veylin stopped listening.  He had heard too many squabbles lately, and this one was no longer his responsibility.

Thankfully, the dispute with Narvi had not come to such backbiting among his own people.  Hyr, a forger of chain and the only injured party of their line, had suffered worse than the others, who were Thjalfi's folk: Nordri and Narvi and Bunir together were still puzzling over the best way to stabilize his ceilings.  Nordri thought granite would have to be brought in, a heavy expense for the modest craftsman.  Yet it had taken no more than two pints of good beer in the sanctum of his office and heartfelt though baffled commiseration to draw out Hyr's shamefaced admission of falsity.  Knowing Narvi's skill, the chain-maker had thought nothing of nodding, the request and permission alike no more than neighborly courtesies.  But then ruin befell, just as Dyr secured the affections of Fastir's daughter, which meant marriage settlements, and when the other two laid charges . . . .

Veylin made Hyr feel that he had tarnished his character, but he also offered him kindly terms on such assistance as he might require with repairs.  What Dwarf was not grasping, when pinched?  He must teach them to come to him, however, rather than over-reach, especially amongst themselves.

Thjalfi, meanwhile, was hammering at the flaws in his own children.  "Why do you do these things, Bogi?  It is not as if you cannot afford the repairs--"

Girni muttered, "Laun never liked that vaulting, anyway."

" _Now_ you grumble," Thjalfi growled, sparing the cobbler a furious glance.  "Fool, to hold your tongue for someone you think stints your sister!  If you--" he included Bogi "--suspected malice on Narvi's part, there might be some excuse for sharp dealing, but still it would have been better to bring your complaints to me.  Instead," his fellow chieftain flung a hand in Veylin's direction, "you have shamed me before Thrir's Line, who have been nothing but obliging.  Out!" Thjalfi bellowed, slamming a fist onto the scarred oak of his desk.  "Get out of my sight, and let me see if I can salvage anything from this botch!"

Girni promptly complied, pausing only for a conciliatory bob in Veylin's direction; Bogi went more sullenly, giving Rekk a resentful glare.  The waterwright repaid him with an openly contemptuous curl of his lip . . . yet Rekk's uncompromising honesty might stir up trouble for him, again, if the tile-maker put it about that he was unfaithful to his kin.

"You, too, Rekk," Thjalfi said, dropping into his seat with an angry huff.

Rekk seemed unperturbed by the brusque dismissal, but when the door had closed behind him Veylin ventured, "You are not angry that he did not speak to you first, I hope."

Thjalfi shook his head.  "What use would that be, with you two so close in each other's counsels?  No; I am grateful you are allowing me to handle this quietly, rather than exposing those two before all comers in court."  Taking up his tankard, he made a face before drowning the ill taste of the proceedings in stout.  "I would be more grateful still if you could persuade Narvi to settle with Skap before then.  We both know, I think," the older chieftain said, dark chestnut brows low over his seasoned gaze, "that he was not guiltless there."

Veylin grunted and reached for his own mug.  While the mason had been cleared of neglect on the other counts, the third seemed likely to stick, and Narvi resisted attempts to bring him to candor, dismissing Skap's claims as trivial and turning any discussion to the genuinely pressing repairs.  It was true that the candle-maker's damages were slight--the cracks in his southern vault were unsightly rather than dangerous, and even Bunir agreed that mortar and plaster would do all that was required--but his outrage was far out of proportion.  When Veylin had visited him, he came away with the impression that Skap was both leery to the edge of trepidation and sensitive to imputations of faintheartedness.  An awkward combination . . . so it was difficult to believe that one who now looked on his fathers' roof with such suspicion would have consented to anything that might weaken it.

Having gotten permission from the others, Narvi might have scorned the unreasonable fears of one--and be reluctant to admit it, now that they had been realized.  The mason might trust that the court would require him to make no more than the necessary repairs, even if Skap did not withdraw his charge and exposed himself to ridicule on the day.  Certainly court would take less of Narvi's now over-taxed time than striving to reach agreement with one so extreme in his demands.  But whichever way judgment went, someone's reputation would be injured, and Dwarves cherished grudges as though they were gold.

The problem was much on Veylin's mind as he made preparations for returning to Gunduzahar.  Supplies of coal and lamp oil, wheat and oats; he must look for a brewer, if one able to share the kitchen peaceably with Bersa could be found, as well as a blacksmith willing to do a bit of farriery for Maelchon and Halpan.  At least Rekk had undertaken to find the plumber for the baths promised to Auð: they would arrange the freighting of the weighty lead.  With the Men's herds prospering, they would not need so much salt beef.  Salt . . . the sea was salt.  Was there a way to take salt from the water?  He doubted it would be the equal of rock salt from the North Farthing, but that was dear and the freight heavy.  Saelon might know: he would ask.

Sitting over the drawings of Gunduzahar with Nordri one evening, planning how to expand the habitation levels--Nordri had taken on two new prentices; Bersi was finalizing contracts with three miners and intimated that his wife thought of joining him; and Aðal had persuaded Vígir, a Longbeard who had prenticed alongside him, to join them--Veylin sighed and set his wine goblet down on a corner of the roll that threatened to overpower the chunk of garnet schist already weighting it.  "I wish matters were so simply arranged here.  Narvi could set his prentices to delving Skap a new suite with an unbroken roof, and be done with him."

Nordri snorted.  "If Skap insists on an unbroken roof, he will have to remove to the Fifth Deep, or out of the mansion entirely!  This sandstone--" he gazed fondly at the mellow maroon of the wall "--is old, and intricately faulted."

Veylin had consulted Regin's plans of the mansion, to understand where Narvi had gone wrong, and seen the network of fine lines that marked breaks in the stone, those that were still colored in shades of saffron and those that shifted in scarlet.  Tilting his head to consider the scroll before him, he asked, "Does Gunduzahar lack faults, or have you not drawn them in yet?"

Stroking his amber beard with a show of pompous complacency, Nordri assured him, "Gunduzahar is faultless," then chuckled.  "Well, nearly so.  The basalt was lain down during the last great cataclysm, and has not been tried as the older rock has.  There is a slight crack here--" he pointed to a section near the back door "--and another here--" through the storeroom level "--but I am sure we will find more as we delve deeper."

Into, most likely, stone such as this, whereas here the Fifth Deep was cut into the foundation of the world, gneiss tempered to toughness on some inconceivable forge.  "Does Narvi hold any suites in the Fifth Deep?"  He might well: there was little new delving in the mansion these days, but what there was was on that level.

"Perhaps."  The mention of his cousin cast reserve across Nordri's face.  "He did at one time.  I remember him complaining that no one was interested in the freehold, but that was some years ago."

"Would you find out if he still has any?" Veylin asked, taking up his goblet again.  This had the ineffable savour of a profitable idea, but one must not be too sanguine, lest fortune take offense.  "And whether he would be willing to trade one for Skap's in the Fourth Deep?"

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"The Fifth Deep?" Skap exclaimed, glaring from Veylin to Narvi, beard bristling with offense.  "Why should I want to dwell down there?"

"Thjalfi, would you be so good as to weigh down that corner?" Veylin asked, passing his fellow chieftain one of Regin's enameled marble weights.  "I have given your complaints much thought, Skap, particularly your concern for the security of your vault.  That is why I asked you to meet us here.  Have you ever seen the king's plans of the mansion?"

The candle-maker gazed across the great roll with mingled reverence and suspicion, as if he harbored lurking doubts about the authenticity of the intricately drawn and vividly inked drawings.  "No."

"Gjarn," Veylin turned to the king's senior draughtsman, who stood protectively near his charge, "could you point out Skap's chambers, and explain the different colors to him?"  Skap did not trust him, let alone Narvi, but surely he would not argue with Gjarn's authority.

Or fervor.  Capturing the complexities of solid stone on flat parchment was the draughtsman's passion, and by the time he came to the elaborate system for depicting the different kinds of faults, and the markings to show their movement, he was demonstrating emphatically with his hands how the breaks crossing Skap's suite might shift.

"Narvi's work has done all that?" Skap cried at last, unable to bear more.

Veylin scowled as the sullen mason rolled his eyes at the candle-maker's ignorance, but fortunately Gjarn took the question to himself, with a deep belly-laugh.  "No, no.  This one here--" he placed the long nail of his forefinger on a bright yellow line "--was the one that did the mischief, and I must overmark it in red.  Bunir and I have carefully surveyed the damage: Narvi opened no new faults, and the others still slumber."

Skap stared at the five lines across his chambers.  "But they, too, might move, if some other fool undertakes works that rouse them?"

That was beyond Gjarn's craft, and he shrugged.  "Who can say?  Rock has a will of its own."

"Having heard your complaints and seen the plans," Veylin leapt in, "I wondered that the bracing of one fault would content you--"

"Narvi did nothing to disturb the others," Thjalfi interrupted sharply, as Skap opened his mouth.  "You cannot require him to secure them."

"--and that is why my mind turned to the Fifth Deep," Veylin pressed determinedly on.  "The gneiss is tougher than these sandstones and grits, and less broken.  Here, let us look at the plans--"

Neither of the two suites Narvi still held were cut by faults, and very little more talk was necessary to persuade Skap to look over the chambers on offer.  Considering the number of stair-flights down and trusting that Thjalfi could better lead his man the remainder of the way, Veylin waved them off with the greatest good will, then sank into one of the well-upholstered chairs.

"Would you watch over this one while I fetch my pen and ink?" Gjarn asked, rolling up the Fifth Deep and slipping it into its tube.  "Since it is already spread, I ought to recolor that fault."

"Of course."  May his courtesy keep fate sweet.  The quarter-court was in two days, and he would not find another solution in so short a time.  Once the draughtsman had disappeared among the scroll-racks, Veylin set his stick on the bookstand beside him and stretched out his game leg, grimacing more in disappointment than pain at the grinding within his knee.  He had hoped for some improvement before he clambered back on his pony, but it seemed time and rest had done all they could.

"That was well done."

Abashed to be caught fretting over his lameness, Veylin let his foot drop as Regin came over to join him.  "A pleasure to be of service, sire," he said, bowing his head.  The praise of the Reawoken was praise indeed.  "Thank you for the use of your plans."

"They are kept to dampen dispute," Regin said, taking the nearest seat, "so you are welcome to them, whenever else you might spare us all a tedious time in court!  When did you think to leave for Gunduzahar?"

"Provided this is truly settled," Veylin replied, as matter-of-factly as sudden uneasiness allowed, "shortly after the quarter court."  His ealdormen had been pressing him to remain; had they spoken to the king?

"So soon?  The ways across the mountains will be buried deep, with all this snow.  Would it not be better to wait until the thaw?"

"And the mud that will follow?" Veylin posed.  It had been a stormy winter, but if they cut north, there was only Erne's Pass, which the gales usually scoured clear.  "Some of the passes are reportedly open, and the climate is milder beside the sea: snow rarely falls there.  It is easier to prospect when the greenery is withered.  Also, if the Elves mean to spy, I doubt they will expect us so early."

Regin nodded sagely.  "Sound reasons.  Still, we will miss you here.  Since Lindon now knows where you house, would it reveal much if you were to come home more often?  It would be good to have you here for the quarter sessions . . . or," he smiled, "somewhat before, so they are over sooner."

"That had been my intention."  His hands were restless, without something to occupy them, but he locked them together rather than take up his stick.  "Yet I now find long journeys a trial."  That was an excuse as lame as his leg.  He was ready enough to go to the coast, where his opal lay.

"I noticed the corrosion of your temper as we returned from Barazdush."  The king's tone was no rebuke.  "Does the leg improve, so such journeys grow easier?"

Veylin shook his head.

Regin sighed.  "You bear up as a Dwarf should, Veylin, so we are apt to forget how much you endure.  Yet surely you see how your folk have lost by your absence these last two years.  How do you plan to offset that?"

"I have not yet found a way to my satisfaction."  Prospects kept changing, in ways that could not be predicted.  Gwinnor's appearance stifled his search for stones; a tempest laid bare the strike of a lifetime.  If the Noldo continued to lurk and finds were as meager as last year, more time here would be little sacrifice.

But how could one dyke be rich, and its brethren bleak?  Focused on the fire opal, unwilling to alert Gwinnor by his attention, he had not yet examined the others as he ought . . . and there were more dykes south of White Cliffs, as Saelon had said.

"Your work is elegant," Regin acknowledged, "and clever.  Still, stopgaps have their uses.  I understand Vitnir is withdrawing from Gunduzahar.  Have you considered deputizing him to act in your stead, while you are absent?"

"Yes."  Did he truly believe Vitnir's meddling would be an improvement, or was the suggestion a lever to bring him into line?

"You know your folk best," the king allowed.  "Now, may I divide your attention further still?  I have been thinking of a new chain of office, and greatly admired the fire opal your sister wore at dinner the other day.  What could be more appropriate for a Firebeard?"

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Notes

**Súlimë** : Westron/Common Speech (from Quenya), March.

**Needle-quartz** : a term of my own invention for rutilated quartz, a transparent variety of quartz containing golden to dark needle-like mineral inclusions.

**Pocked** : spotted (originally, as if with smallpox scars).  Much of the basalt in the tableland where Gunduzahar is delved is amygdaloidal, full of little cavities that were once gas bubbles, now infilled with other minerals.

**Bay** : the section of a building between a set of columns or supports.  Since the hall has three pairs of pillars, there are four bays.

**Pace** : I have estimated a dwarven pace as 22 inches (56 cm).  When you add the height of the vault above, this makes the hall at least three stories high.

**"granite that color"** : actually, this would be a green amphibolite or epidiorite.

**Biscuit** : in the British sense; what Americans call a cookie.

**Cold-quenching** : the abrupt cooling of hot iron by plunging it into a cold liquid.  For details on quenching, see the [Dûnhebaid Dictionary](http://astele.co.uk/henneth/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=7676&SPOrdinal=1).

**Marriage settlements** : among Dwarves, I have hypothesized that men must endow their brides in a way that assures them and their children a decent standard of living if their husbands die prematurely.  So large a sum would require substantial investment on the part of prospective grandparents.

**"kindly terms"** : a low interest rate.

**Thrir's Line** : the sept Veylin is chieftain of.  I have given the Firebeards four septs; Thrir's is third in order of precedence, after the royal Regin's Line and Nidr's Line.  Rekk and Veylin's nephews belong to Nidr's Line, and Thjalfi is their chieftain.  See the section on Dwarves in the Dramatis Personae for more details.

**North Farthing** : of the Shire.  When the British began to search avidly for coal in the late seventeenth century, they discovered rock salt in Cheshire; this was later exported throughout the British Empire.  This seems to chime well with the "early modern" milieu of the Shire, and would help explain where the silver spoons and mirrors in upper-class Hobbit households come from.  For a discussion of the economic value of salt, see the [Dûnhebaid Dictionary](http://astele.co.uk/henneth/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=7676&SPOrdinal=1).

**"the last great cataclysm"** : Adaneth!Dwarves (and Noldor) interpret evidence of dramatic geological events as a record of the strife between Aulë and Melkor during the formation of Arda.  (An understanding of stratigraphy would allow them to deduce their chronological order.)  Barring recent glacial erosion, the last "earth-shattering" episode in what is now Scotland was an outbreak of volcanic activity across the Inner Hebrides 70-60 million years ago.  The basalt tableland Gunduzahar is delved in and the dykes Veylin finds so lucrative have been modeled on features created during this period.

**Erne's Pass** : a feature of my own invention.  An erne is an eagle, especially the white-tailed sea eagle ( _Haliaeetus albicilla_ ).  If you look at the map of northwest Eriador, you will see a mountain that looks remarkably like Suilven and its trailing ridge at the head of the Lune--that is Sulûnduban.  Northwest of this, there is only a single line of peaks; Erne's Pass is to the left of the smallest.

**Reawoken** : "Dwarves asserted that the spirits of the Seven Fathers of their races were from time to time reborn in their kindreds" (HoME XII: _The Peoples of Middle-Earth_ , "Last Writings: Glorfindel").  As an aside to a discussion of Elvish reincarnation, Tolkien provided some tantalizing details on the Dwarvish variant.  All the Durins who were kings of the Longbeards were the same person: at the end of the usual lifespan, he would "fall asleep, but then lie in a tomb of his own body, at rest, and there its weariness and any hurts that had befallen it should be amended.  Then after long years he should arise and take up his kingship again," memories intact.  One wonders what such a resurrection did to the succession . . . or was it a convenient way to "restore" the line if there was no near heir?  In any case, I have conjectured that this Regin is the fifth of that name.


	9. Wolf's-Head

Thar na sìorruidheachd, thar a sneachda _Across eternity, across its snows  
_ chì mi mo dhàin neo-dheachdte, _I see my unwritten poems,  
_ chì mi lorgan an spòg a' breacadh _I see the spoor of their paws dappling  
_ gile shuaimhneach an t-sneachda; _the untroubled whiteness of the snow:  
_ calg air bhoile, teanga fala, _bristles raging, bloody-tongued,  
_ gadhair chaola 's madaidhean-allaidh _lean greyhounds and wolves  
_ a' leum thar mullaichean nan gàradh _leaping over the tops of the dykes,  
_ a' ruith fo sgàil nan craobhan fàsail _running under the shade of the trees of the wilderness  
_ ag gabhail cumhang nan caol-ghleann _taking the defile of narrow glens,  
_ a' sireadh caisead nan gaoth-bheann _making for the steepness of windy mountains_

\--Somhairle MacGill-Eain/Sorley McLean, " _Coin is Madaidhean-Allaidh_ /Dogs and Wolves"

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

The keen bite of the wind at his face; the tuneful music of horn and hound behind; and ahead, two shaggy beasts flew over the snowy moor at their utmost stretch, each striving to win their fatal race.  Low over Mada's neck, Dírmaen urged the brown gelding to close, clenching his gloved hand on the spear shaft to supple chilled fingers.  The wolf ran strongly, but Baude was fleeter and would be on him in a furlong, before the pack could come up.

By Aldaron, that bitch was a gallant beast!  Candíl must have bred an alaunt into her line, for greyhounds, no matter how large, were rarely eager to come up with a wolf.  A length between them; half a length, and she snapped at his tail.  The wolf surged forward, a last desperate burst, tearing clots of snow from the ground, flinging them at his foe.  Uncaring, Baude lunged, teeth flashing at his hocks.

Both animals went down in a spray of white, a momentary veil over their tumble.  A roil of iron-grey and fawn; Dírmaen could hear their snarls under Mada's gusty breaths and the excited yells of the laggard pack.  The wolf seized Baude's throat and was thwarted by her stout, studded collar, as his bristling ruff clotted her furious fangs.  Dropping his head, the wolf snapped at a clawing foreleg, and the bitch gave a piercing yelp--

Dírmaen drove his spear into a dark haunch that showed clear, tearing the beast from Baude.  Mada snorted at the stink of wolf and blood as the steel ripped free, and then the swiftest raches leapt onto their writhing prey.  Leaving the kill to them, Dírmaen turned back to the wounded hound, who stood three-legged, gazing at the bloody melee with yearning in her brown eyes.  "Hssh," he breathed soothingly as he dismounted and drew off a glove.  "Brave lass.  Lie down--down, and let me see."

After a moment of doubt, for he was almost a stranger to her, she obeyed, and began licking her rent leg.  Caressing his way by careful degrees from her shaggy, slaver-daubed head, Dírmaen had just reached the wound when hooves thudded nearby and a pair of boots hit the ground.  "Cursed luck!" Candíl cried, as the bitch looked up at him and whined piteously.  "How bad?"

"The smaller bone may be broken," Dírmaen answered.

"Coifi!" Candíl called towards the huntsmen whipping the pack from the rent carcass, and stooped to fondle Baude's ears.  "Tend her," he ordered when the man trotted over, tucking his whip into his belt, "and make sure she gets first feed from the carcass."

"Baude down?" Halforod asked, pulling his broad-breasted grey up beside them.

"Thankee," Coifi murmured in Dírmaen's ear, and he moved aside for the huntsman.  "Aach, who's my bonny lass?"  The bitch whimpered as Coifi felt her gory limb.  "Not so bad as might be," he judged.  "Long as the wolf wasna wood, she'll make whelps if naught else."

Candíl gave a huff of lessened displeasure, and looked to Dírmaen.  "Then you shall have your pick from her next litter, for that spear thrust of yours."

A generous gift; but the younger son of the Lord of Rhassarth had always been open-handed.  "Thank you," Dírmaen said, smiling.  "She is a splendid hound.  I hope she mends well enough to run again.  Yet Taratal is likely to get more use from your gratitude than I."

"Why?"  Candíl was not best pleased with Taratal at present.  The invitation for a fortnight's hunting had been to him, and extended to Dírmaen instead when he rode over with his brother's apologies.  The only man in the Downs keener for hunting than Taratal did not think a new babe sufficient excuse to neglect the chase, especially since it was a girl.

Dírmaen gave him a wry grin.  "It is hard to keep a stable and kennel while in the Chieftain's service."

"As you would know," Halforod observed dryly to his son, "if you would leave off slaying beasts long enough to kill a few Orcs."

This sounded like a well-worn subject; indeed, Candíl was nearer the age for marriage than that at which likely men sought a recommendation to the Chieftain.  "Who would keep these vermin--" he glanced to where Coifi oversaw the unmaking of the wolf, one of his varlets chopping the goat's haunch they had brought to reward the hounds "--from the flocks and herds, if we were all on the borders?  And train your horses and hounds, since you cannot attend to such trifles while ranging?"

Since his heir was well-placed among the Rangers and had already gotten his own heir, Halforod apparently felt content enough to roll his eyes and snort at such wrong-headedness.  "Coifi and I could manage quite well without you; I have earned the right to such pleasures!  You are like one of those dogs that finds coursing after hares so thrilling he will not settle to tracking worthier beasts.  But if you are content with such prey, and do not choose to run with Argonui's pack . . . ."

"My brother is no better," Dírmaen said, seeking to shield his host a little.

"At least he served enough years to earn a bride!  As for training hound and horse, no man needs a hound to track Orcs.  And when have you let a horse go," Halforod asked his son, "unless it had a fault?"

Candíl raised his brows questioningly.  "Have you not always taught me that the best stock should be kept back for breeding?"

His father shook his head and looked to Dírmaen, lips quirking in a smile.  "Let this be a warning to you: sons ever twist your words to suit themselves--and do not take a mount that has been through Candíl's hands on patrol!"  As Dírmaen went to catch Mada's reins and collect his spear from where he had plunged it into the turf through the snow, the lord considered his gelding thoughtfully.  "I would not have guessed that fellow had such a turn of speed," Halforod confessed.  "Is he one of your father's, or did you pick him up while you were in the west?"

"Neither," Dírmaen replied, mounting.  "Arathorn gave him to me.  I was told he came out of the South Downs."

"Hm; yes, they have some first-rate studs down there: most of the Númenorean and Rohirrim blood came up the Greenway.  A pity he was cut."  That regret seemed to lead his thoughts to other losses.  "Halladan bred very fine horses, better suited to these climes than most of the southern stock.  Do you know what became of his stud?"

"Many were lost to the _raugs_ , I fear, or are running wild in the hills.  His best stallion and three mares of quality he sent to his sister with his children; she also has two of his hobby mares."  That he could now speak of Saelon without feeling the pangs of want pleased him.

"They are being bred, I hope."  Halforod frowned.  "Has she a man who understands such things?"

"Her cousin--Halpan, next in line after Halladan's son, who has been fostered with Râdbaran--sees to such things."  When he was at Habad-e-Mindon.  "The only other stallion is his, but Halladan's has sired all the foals these last two years."

"Râdbaran has taken Halladan's boy in hand?"  Rhassarth's lord pursed his lips.  "Was that Arathorn's doing?"

"Râdbaran asked, and the lad and the Lady agreed, I believe.  Yet Arathorn must have given his blessing."

"Yes."

Halforod's noncommittal tone and silence bespoke differences in counsel or policy among the lords, something beyond Dírmaen's ken.  He had served Arathorn and found him a just master; he had served alongside Argonui and liked him as a man . . . the little the Chieftain had yet asked of him gave him no grounds for complaint.  Not knowing the preferences of the lord over his father's lands, however, it seemed wisest to leave the matter lie.

With Candíl, they watched as Coifi carried Baude to the gutted carcass, so she could eat the goat's meat and blood-soaked bread of the _róma_ from it, while the rest of the pack was kept back by the other huntsmen.  They blew the mort while the varlets hallooed, and when the valiant bitch had had her share, she was taken away and the pack let in.

They were making their way down off the moor, hounds trotting happily alongside, when a horseman was seen, pounding up the slope as if to meet them.  "Who is this?" Candíl asked, frowning in puzzlement.

Halforod shaded his eyes, for the sun was low in the west.  "Is it Borthir?  Dírmaen, your eyes are younger than mine."

"Yes."  It was the young Ranger from the north shore of Lake Evendim, who was serving his term as a message-rider.

"Why did he not wait at Dungarth for our return?" the lord wondered, pressing his grey into a canter.

The message must be urgent, Dírmaen reflected, as he followed close.  Though the days were lengthening, they could not have stayed out much longer, and if Borthir had ridden hard or far in this weather, he could hardly be faulted for sitting a while with a cup of ale before a good fire, rather than chasing after them on the white, wind-swept hills.

"What news?" Halforod called, as soon as they were near enough, and Borthir finally halted his laboring, sweat-stained bay.

"Here you are, Dírmaen!" the rider cried out in relief.  "Mixed news, Halforod, but my message is for Dírmaen."

"For me?"  If ill had befallen his kin, the news would have been brought by one of the folk of Tum Melui, not a Ranger.  Did Argonui have a need for men so pressing that he must recall him in such haste?  "What is it?"

"Halgorn, who has been harrying the outlaws beyond the Lune, begs you will meet him in Srathen Brethil, as soon as you can.  The outlaws have taken to the mountains and eluded them, and he craves your knowledge of the area and skill in tracking."

"When did you leave Halgorn?"  A hundred and fifty leagues lay between them and Srathen Brethil by the straightest way.  Even a message-rider, swapping horses with such patrols as he met on his way, must have taken near a week to reach him; there would be no time to return to Gellnen for farewells and the oddments left behind.

Borthir shook his head.  "I have not come from him.  I left Fornost yesterday morning, and lost the better part of a day seeking you in Tum Melui."

"Come," Halforod said, starting back down towards Dungarth at a brisk trot.  "There is much to do, if we are to put you on the road at first light.  You will need another horse--my stable is at your service.  Do you lack anything in the way of arms or gear?"

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Too warm for snow, too cold for mud; when he could, Dírmaen made camp where the pale yellow primroses, peeping timidly out at the grim grey end of winter, had found shelter.  Nínui was a dire month for travelers, though its icy grip on the earth allowed him to ride across rather than around many bogs, saving at least a day.  He ought to have been discontented--never warm, eating leather-hard beef instead of larded venison, naught to drink but water--yet in truth he was happier than he had been in a long while.

The respite from duty's demands had done him good, but the satisfaction of being wanted was better still.  Halgorn did not beg easily, or often.

After crossing the Lune he kept a little north of west until the peaks of the Blue Mountains could be made out, sharp-white against the clouds' drear grey.  A day further, and he struck the course of Allt Lim, whose ice-rimmed waters led him into the sheltered glen.  There were the birches that gave Srathen Brethil its name, their slender silver trunks starkly bare; there the frosted surface of the pool--no golden flag-flowers at this season--beside the ford, which the swift current kept from freezing.

"Hai!  Dírmaen!" cried a glad voice from the slope above.

As he scanned the trees, a patch of shadowed snow rose, revealing itself to be a Ranger's grey cloak, and the wearer threw back his hood.  "Randir!" Dírmaen called back, grinning.  "I thank you for not knocking me from my horse!"

In the winter stillness, he could hear his friend's nettled huff at the reminder of their inauspicious first meeting in the confusion of a night melee.  "If you do not leave off, I will happily lay you low again.  Where were you that you are so long in coming?  Rivendell?  Or the Pony's common-room?"  Randir slid more than strode down to join him.

"Hunting wolves with Halforod . . . but wolf's-heads in the mountains in winter sounded more entertaining."

Randir snorted.  "Entertaining.  That is one word for it."

"Have you left any for me?"  In the more than a fortnight since Halgorn's message was sent, much may have happened.

"We have . . . but the weather may leave us little to do."  Glancing at the snow-mantled peaks all about them, Randir drew his hood back up.  "A bleak place, this.  Why will its people not settle across the Lune, as the Chieftain has commanded?"

Dírmaen sighed and shifted in the saddle.  "In midsummer, it is fair."  As fair as Saelon, dancing in Lothron; even now, it had a severe beauty, no less familiar.  "The mountains breed thrawn folk, and not only Dwarves.  How many are you, and where will I find Halgorn?"

"Five, now that you are here.  We have taken the lord's hall."  He pointed across the ford, and Dírmaen saw a faint thread of smoke rising beyond the lea.  "I will not keep you longer: Halgorn is anxious to consult with you, and there is a pot of stew on the fire."

"Keep warm," Dírmaen wished him, leaning down to clasp his arm, "and I will see you when you are done your watch."

When he had last looked on the hall of Saelon's kin, it had been desolate, _raug_ -broken, sheltering naught but sparrows.  Stopping to let the horses drink at the ford, Dírmaen reflected on how much difference a little smoke rising from the louver made: proof of life and warmth, like a puff of breath on the lips of a fallen man.  The snow no doubt cloaked many signs of decay--he wondered what, if anything, they had done about the gaping hole where the corner-post had been broken--but so long as the roof did not give way under its burden of white, he would not complain.

The homely thump of someone splitting wood; two men looked up from their examination of a horse by the door of a stoutly built stable as he rode into the yard, one of them Halgorn.  "I knew you would come!  The One love you--is that a spare horse?"

"Yes, one of Halforod's."

"Better still!"

Dírmaen dismounted, gratefully, and jerked his chin at the chestnut, who was standing on his heels.  "What is wrong with this fellow?"

The other Ranger, an older man with grey beginning to streak his dark hair, made a sour face and stroked the beast's neck.  "The cold and wet have gotten into Rust's hooves."

"May I?"  Dírmaen gestured towards the gelding's feet.

"Please."

Halgorn took Mada and Halforod's roan while he looked over the chestnut.  A well-made beast: his legs seemed sound enough, but there was a tenderness in the feet, and the horn of his hooves was not as hard as it ought to be.  Southern-bred horses were sometimes prone to such complaints; it was well they had caught it early.  "I see he was shod."

"He was; but it is long since we saw a farrier."

That was a common problem with Ranger's horses.  "If there is not the wherewithal to shoe him again, all that can be done is to rest him and keep his feet tolerably dry.  How is the stable?"  Since Halladan had been devoted to horses, it ought to be good.

"As dry as anything, in this weather," the older Ranger said, shrugging, "unless we bring him into the hall and stand him by the hearth.  Faelnoth," he named himself, offering his arm.

"Dírmaen.  You are welcome to the roan, Pegeb.  He was raised on the North Downs and scorns snow, unless it comes higher than his knees."

Faelnoth bowed his head in thanks.  "Who could refuse such an offer, in this place?  May I see to your horses for you?"

"Who could refuse such an offer, with a good fire finally in reach?" Dírmaen returned, smiling.  "Some of the bags on Pegeb are oats and beans: I thought your supplies might be running low.  The dried apples and meal, however, are for our feed."

Halgorn clapped him on the shoulder and laughed.  "For such kindness, you may have the best piece of gristle left in the pot.  Come; let's get in, so you can start to thaw."

By the modest woodpile, Hanend waved a welcome.  From this angle, Dírmaen saw that the hall had been hastily repaired: the broken post replaced with a rough-hewn log, boards wrenched back into place, pine boughs draped over the hole in the roof.  "You have been busy," he exclaimed.  "Is there no kitchen, or smaller building that would do?"

"That is not our work," Halgorn said dryly.  "The outlaws took a fancy to the place.  It seemed a shame not to enjoy their only efforts to do something creditable."

Dírmaen gave a sardonic chuff.  "So they were here."

Halgorn held the door for him.  "As you can see."

It was not so bad as the house where he had stayed on his return from Habad-e-Mindon, but probably because his fellows had cleared away the rubbish and mended what they could during interminable weather-bound days and long, tedious evenings.  Still, the furniture that remained was scarred by blade and fire, and a faint odor of piss underlay the strongly resinous scent of the new-cut pine boughs strewn thickly on the floor.  At least the outlaws had left the pot-chain, and a few hangings survived, not too badly cut by the figures upon them being used for targets.  "That is our bedchamber," Halgorn said, nodding towards the corner the hangings screened off, furthest from the one wrecked by the _raugs_ , where a little snow wafted across the floor, blown in through the unchinked planks.  "And here is the kitchen."  Lifting the lid from the pot by the modest fire at the nearer end of the long hearth, he dipped Dírmaen a bowl of stew.  "No ale, I fear, but at least we can give you something hot."

"For which I am heartily grateful."  After a week in the wild, a roof and hot food were not trifling comforts.  Still, as he sat and sucked the meat from the bones of an unlucky hare, he could not help wondering what Saelon would make of the ruin of her childhood home.  Or Rian, since her memories were fresher and heart more tender.

Perhaps it was as well that Saelon had kept her little band by the shore, else they would have been here when the outlaws came.

"How many outlaws are there?" he asked Halgorn, who was rearranging the fire.  More than a few, to manhandle a new corner-post into place . . . and at least one among them with intelligence and perhaps ambition, able to command his fellows.  If there was not some cunning among them, Halgorn would have quickly put an end to them.

"Eight or nine are left, we think.  Meagvir claimed his patrol slew seven, and we have killed six: three here and the rest further up the valley, as they retreated through a storm.  But they slipped away through one of high passes and the snow covered their tracks."  Halgorn thrust his stick into the embers as if they were the foe.  "They did not go by the tarn where the _raugs_ laired, that I know.  You have been in these parts more than I--are there other ways they might have taken, or places they could find shelter?"

"So many?" Dírmaen exclaimed, dismayed and not a little alarmed.  More than a score, before they began harrying them.  "I had no idea there were so many lawless men in the whole northwest!  Where could they have come from?"

Halgorn sighed.  "I do not know.  Meagvir suspected some had come from the hills west of Carn Dûm, but others are surely men of this valley.  Who else could have led them to escape?  We purposefully held our attack until the the blizzard was thickest, to prevent their flight."

The hillmen of Carn Dûm were as inured to cold as any living--and rapacious as Orcs.  "South of here, I am told, there is a good pass that leads towards Côfgelion."  There were no sheltered places in the mountains; the corries he had hunted through last summer must be full of snow.  The only fit place for man or horse would be along the shore.

The shore--

"No, they did not go south," Halgorn declared.  "We drove them up the valley, beyond the tarn of the _raugs_."  The fear that had suddenly bloomed in Dírmaen's breast was no more than anxiety in the troll-slayer's eyes.  "If some were men of Srathen Brethil, might they have heard of the settlement at Habad-e-Mindon, and gone that way?"

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Notes

**Aldaron** : Lord of the Trees; one of the names of Oromë.

**Alaunt** : a gazehound, which pursued and brought down prey it could see, larger and burlier than a greyhound.  Though slower, they were stronger and more reckless, suitable for quarry such as bear.  Greyhounds, which are also gazehounds, were more variable than they are today, including larger, rough-coated types we would now call deerhounds.  Both of these were auxillaries for most hunts; the pack proper would be raches or running-hounds, very like their fox-hound descendants, which tracked game by scent.  The term "bitch" is used here in its proper sense, to indicate a female canine; males are dogs.

**Wood** : mad; infected with rabies.  This was a serious concern when hounds were bitten by wolves, for healthy wolves usually avoided men.

**Rhassarth** : "region of cliffs," a name of my own invention; the northern North Downs and surrounding country.  In my vision of scattered and decayed Dúnedain lordships, this honor is about on a par with that of Srathen Brethil.

**Varlet** : generally, a page or servant; in hunting, the next-to-lowest position in a hunting establishment, usually held by a teenaged boy learning the art.

**Númenorean blood** : while some writers have proposed the existance of Arab-like horses from Harad (which is perfectly plausible), I have chosen to infer that the finest equine bloodlines--the horses brought from Valinor by the Noldor and _mearas_ excepted--could be traced to Númenor.  Their excellence was probably due to a higher proportion of Valinorean blood, since only the finest horses would have been transported to the island kingdom.  Many Númenoreans settled about the Bay of Belfalas before the Downfall; indeed, Umbar was their chief naval base in Middle-earth.

**_Róma_** : Quenya, "trumpet-sound"; also "shoulder."  I am using this in place of _curée_ , the Middle French term used by English nobility for the ritual rewarding of the hounds at the end of the hunt--often the only time, unless they were sick, that they got meat.  The term seemed appropriate, since horns (Oromë's horn was called Valaróma) were blown throughout the _curée_ , and with smaller game, some of the flesh was given to the dogs along with the entrails.  I chose Quenya rather than Sindarin because the elaborate ritual of such hunts seems more in the Noldorin line.

**Lake Evendim** : the lake beside the Emyn Uial; Annúminas, the ancient capital of Arnor, was on its southern shore.

**Dungarth** : Halforod's hall.

**Nínui** : Sindarin, the month of February.

**Larded** : wild game is lean, which can make the meat dry; it was often laced or covered with fat or fatty meat like bacon to make it more succulent.

**Allt Lim** : compound; Gaelic _allt_ , "stream" (compare Sindarin _ôll_ , mountain stream), and Sindarin _lim_ , "swift."

**Wolf's-heads** : outlaws, to be hunted down like wolves.  A bounty was paid for bringing in the head of a slain wolf.

**Carn Dûm** : the chief fortress of Angmar.

**Côfgelion** : Sindarin, "bay of Gelion"; the bay north of Forlindon and southeast of the Isle of Himring.  A comparison of maps of the area in the Third and First Ages shows it is in the approximate location of the upper valley of the River Gelion, and so I have conjectured that the bay was named after its ancient headwaters.


	10. Unbidden Guests

_Some say the world will end in fire,_  
_Some say in ice._  
_From what I've tasted of desire_  
_I hold with those who favor fire._  
_But if it had to perish twice,_  
_I think I know enough of hate_  
_To say that for destruction ice_  
_Is also great  
_ _And would suffice._

\--Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"

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**WARNING: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violent physical and sexual assault.  The story's rating has been changed to ADULT.  Readers who would find this traumatic may wish to skip this chapter and, if very sensitive, the next as well.**

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Though the wind was keen, Saelon cast her hood back, enjoying the freedom of the air.  It had been a stormy winter, wracked by gale after gale, and snow lay low on the flanks of the hills to the east.  This day of pale sun was a welcome sign of the season's passing; she was glad to get out of the close hall and tramp, sloppy though the footing was, by Fransag's side, the goodwife's grumbling washing over her like the mutter of subsiding surf.

The missing cattle; her mother's labored breathing--Fransag could speak of nothing else, yet she said nothing Saelon had not heard a half dozen times before.  Gràinne's phlegm-clotted lungs were beyond cure; had been this year at least, and the winter's relentless damps had cruelly worsened them.  Ground-ivy, coltsfoot, and thyme had done what they could . . . all Saelon had left to offer was bramble-root and pennyroyal, ample supplies of which she carried in her scrip.  With the blessing, that might ease Gràinne so far as the drier warmth of summer.  Further than that, Saelon dared not hope.  Perhaps the Elves knew of other simples, that did not grow in these lands; she would ask when she went to the Havens at Yáviérë.

As for the cattle, that had thrown everything into confusion this morning when Maelchon arrived at the hall seeking news of Fokel, who had not come home last night.  Normally all the kine would have been in Canand's care, but the poor state of the grazing at this season had led them to spread their beasts thinly over the land.  The horses had the machair south of the tower hill, favoring the mares as they neared their time to foal; the sheep and new lambs were spread about the bay from clifftop to southern hill, watched over by Maelchon's two eldest boys and Finean as well as her collie; and the cattle had been divided, Canand taking hers beyond the southern hill while Fokel drove Maelchon's towards the oakwood.

It ought to have been a simple matter of getting Partalan or Gaernath to ride out and seek him--he might have twisted an ankle, or a cow might be stuck in a bog.  Maelchon confessed, however, somewhat shamefaced, that his servant had begun roving in search of better grass for his beasts, and he was not sure where Fokel had taken them the day before.  Then all the men must argue about where he might have gone, and who ought to look for him, and what should be done with the stock whose keepers were searching, while Maelchon kept craving everyone's pardon and fretting that his beasts were lost . . . .

It was so good to be in the open air, with only one person to listen to.  Even Guaire and Hanadan, who were supposed to be keeping them company, had lagged behind, playing at something or other.

Murmuring commiseration to Fransag's angry worry about the kine, Saelon smiled at the blushing buds of the sallows and first brave hazel-flowers as they walked along the riverbank.  Spring was coming; soon it would be time to take up her pack and begin to walk about the land, seeing how its growing things fared, marking where it would be best to harvest flower and berry and root this year.  Nor would anyone quarrel with her for doing so.  Halpan and Partalan would be off to Srathen Brethil as soon as the ways across the mountains were clear; Veylin and his company would return.  She could make a coracle, and try it on the bay.

The coming year seemed as full of promise as the buds upon the alders.

When they had carefully climbed up the mud-slick track to the higher bank where Maelchon's sturdy stone house sat, Fransag halted so suddenly Saelon nearly ran into her.  "Who is this?" the goodwife exclaimed, wondering.

Abashed to be wandering more in mind than in body, Saelon peered past her.  "What is it?"

"There are two horses tied to the thorn--horses I do not know.  Who could it be?"

Saelon's first thought, that it might be Coruwi or other Elves of Lindon, vanished as soon as she saw the horses: thin, dull-coated things that stood with lowered heads, their tack as poorly kept as themselves.  "I do not know.  Some of those returning to Srathen Brethil, perhaps?"  Halpan had appointed to meet them there in the middle of Nínui; they may have come to seek him.

"But the heights are still buried in snow," Fransag objected.

A glance would seem to confirm it.  "Where else could they have come from?  The mountains may have shielded the glen from the storms," Saelon suggested.

Fransag clucked.  "I hope so, if their horses are that sad.  I wonder if it is Uven and his brother?  Drustan would have walked, rather than ride such gaunt beasts."  Continuing on, she fell back into her grumble.  "They would come while Maelchon is off looking for our kine . . . though I am surprised he and Halpan did not see them, since they are searching upriver.  If Tearlag has set aside her mending to entertain such guests, I will make her rue it.  That lass is far too ready," she huffed, "to quit her work and serve our ale to any who stop by."

Saelon did not comment, since her men were the less than welcome visitors.  Finean and Canand were courting Tearlag, now that it was clear Fokel could not secure her: properly, Saelon thought.  Their work--and neither was an idler--left little time for visiting . . . although she supposed to Fransag, who would lose her servant if the woman wed into the hall, any attentions were too great a distraction.  "Where are those boys?"  That seemed a safer topic, and Saelon turned to look back.  "Hanadan?"

From the hazel-brakes came a yelp and high, angry yell, followed by the clatter of headlong flight through still-bare branches.

"Hanadan!" she called again, sharply.  Fransag walked on, long since hardened to the squabbles of boys.

Her young cousin emerged from the hazels, thoroughly spattered with mud and scrubbing at a red weal on his glowering face; Guaire came a bit later, looking half hang-dog, half triumphant, the switch still in his hand.  "If you hadn't called," Hanadan said reproachfully, "he wouldn't have got me."

Reaching out, Saelon took his cheek in her hand and considered the welt.  How they managed to avoid blinding or maiming, she did not know.  "Must you two always be attacking each other?"

"We are practicing to be Rangers," Hanadan declared.

"Hmh."  She plucked a bronze hazel-flower from his dark hair, and smoothed out the worst tangle.  "Well, my Rangers, now you must practice your manners.  Guests have come."

"Who?" Guaire asked.

Hanadan, having spotted the horses, was staring at them with a fine contempt.  "What sorry beasts!  No one who visits us rides nags like that."

"No, just stubby little ponies," Guaire shot back.

"Tinnu was no pony!"

"Is this your idea of manners?" Saelon demanded.  "If you cannot keep from quarreling--"

A shriek, from the house.

Saelon turned, staring.  Another cry came, this one colored by fury as well as fear, and was suddenly muffled.  A man's harsh curse, and a figure in a dun cloak broke from the door, running towards them.

No man of Srathen Brethil.

Whipping back around, she seized the boys, who stood rooted, mouths gaping and eyes wide as owls'.  "Run!" she commanded.  "Run back to the hall, as fast as you can!  Get everyone in, and tell them to bar the door.  Go!"

Hanadan obediently bolted, but Guaire hung there, torn, staring towards his mother's cry.  He could do nothing for her; nothing but--  "Run, you fool, and get your brothers into the hall!"

A shove finally moved him, and as he flung himself between the hazel-stems, Saelon also ran.  Not towards the hall--she must buy the folk there time: time for Hanadan to make himself understood, for everyone to be gathered in.  If she could reach the peat hags, she might play at tig with him among the cuttings . . . .

The thud of feet drew closer; she could hear the rasp of her pursuer's breath, but did not dare look back.  Who--her own breath came short, after winter's confinement--was this?  Had the men not seen them?

Fokel and the cattle.  Reivers.  Oh, where were Halpan and Partalan!?

The low bank that was the last lip of the pale cliff: she leapt, but slipped on the mud.  Before she could scrabble up, he was on her, seizing the scruff of her cloak and jerking her backwards.  "Stupid bint," he growled, barbarous speech, and clouted her in the head.

Saelon clawed at her cloak-pin, trying to writhe free of the ragged but still stout wool; he struck again, felling her.  As she gasped and clung to the suddenly unsteady earth, he took her arm and dragged her to her feet.  "Don't make it worse for yourself."

His voice was as cold as his mud-brown eyes; his breath almost too foul to smell the ale he had been drinking.  Stumbling unwillingly along in his clutch, half-dazed, Saelon fought a rising gorge: his rankness, the swimming of her head . . . fear.

When they reached Maelchon's house, the door was still open.  Striding in without hesitation, he flung her carelessly aside.  Though her head had cleared somewhat, Saelon did not notice the goods heaped beside the hearth until she tripped over the smaller of Fransag's pots.  Down she went, again, the silvery sheen of the flagstones tearing at her hands as she caught herself.

"Was your mother a sow, that you must rut everything you see?" the reiver who had captured her was shouting at his companion, who still grappled with Fransag.  "The brats have gone to fetch help.  Leave her, and get that corn on the nags!  We will have them all later, when their men are slain."

A leering grin seemed fixed on the other's scabbed face.  "Aach," he slurred, "they are slain already, unless Oleg's cocked up.  Why bother to pack stuff out, only to bring it back again?"  Leaving go Fransag's face, he sought to capture the hand that beat awkwardly back at his head, her other arm already pinned at her waist.  "I wager Oleg will keep this toothsome bit for himself--the only one of the lot that is not nobbly bone and whimpers!"

Fransag cried out in rage, pushing back against him as he groped between her legs . . . but it appeared that her struggles only heightened the reiver's lust.  To fight the dread that threatened to petrify her--the men slain already!--Saelon cast her eyes about the room, seeking . . . something, anything that might aid them.  But the house had been ransacked, a crumpled shirt forgotten by the door to the ben, showing the inner chamber had not escaped.  Across the hearth, Tearlag huddled, clutching her torn clothing about her, staring at them with the blankness of despair.

"Fool!" the one who had captured her dismissed, going to the ale barrel and plunging the stoup deep, as if they had drunk it nearly dry.  "Stay then!"  He drank greedily, careless of what spilled down his front, then pulled the largest fish from the strings set to smoke above the hearth, stuffing them down his shirt.

Saelon shrank back as he strode her way, what wits she had recovered scattering like buzzard-struck partridges.  However, he only scooped up a bundle of woolen garments and Fransag's meal kist before heading out the door.  She had hardly sagged against the sack of corn behind her before the ripping of cloth and Fransag's redoubled cries made her ashamed of any relief.  Too much--too terrible; her head had begun to throb in time with the desperate beating of her heart, and she shut her eyes, not wanting to see, wishing she could close her ears.

Something hard pressed against her hip where it was cradled by the grain sack, and her mind was so disordered that it took a few breaths to remember her scrip, full of simples for Gràinne . . . .  Her knife.  She had her knife, bright keen dwarf-steel that made naught of the toughest hide, the strongest sinew.

Opening her eyes a slit, she saw the remaining reiver had given himself entirely over to ravishing Fransag, his face buried in the hair about her neck, the hand that did not shackle her wrists sullying the paps that had suckled so many babes . . . .  Babes!  Where was the babe, and the children?  They should be squalling the roof down, and Gràinne--

Hate cleared her head like the pitiless blast of a winter gale.  He would regret ever coming here, but not for long.  This Oleg thought to take them all?  If he had slain Gaernath and Halpan and Partalan, Maelchon and Finean and Canand, she would put on Halladan's helm and place bows in the hands of Artan and Leod and Teig and Gormal.  They would shoot the reivers down like dogs as they struggled up towards the cliff-ledge, and tumble their corpses at the cliff-foot for the corbies to feast upon.  Their weapons they would take and set on the wall beside the _raug_ -spear, to keep the memory of their vengeance green.

If she did not take them to the Havens, and cast them at Círdan's feet in lieu of rent.

The knife was naked in her hand beneath her cloak, and she was calculating where to stick it, when the other reiver darkened the doorway, coming back for more plunder.  "Not done yet?" he gibed derisively.  "Did the old one's frost wilt your stalk?"

Death.  The steel sang to her, craving their blood.  Saelon lowered her eyes, lest they see her fear was gone.

Fransag cursed them, her hoarse voice cracking, calling upon the unseen powers since her own strength had proved too feeble: that stoats should devour them alive from within and _raugs_ fill their mothers' bellies with monsters; their kinsmen's stones rot in their cods and kinswomen miscarry, unto the seventh degree.

"I'll give you a monster, first," the reiver sneered, and bore Fransag down to the floor.

The one nearest Saelon watched a while as his fellow rode the goodwife as if she were an unbroken horse, until he was able to bring his yard from his trews as she lay blowing and sobbing with exhaustion.  Leaning over Saelon to take up the larger kettle, the reiver who had caught her gave her a goatish smile.  "Wait for me," he said.

She laid the soft underside of his arm open to the bone, cutting the great vessel.

Jerking away, he found the arm did not obey him and clutched at the wound, trying to stem the livid stream pumping his lifeblood away.  A kick knocked the knife from her hand, and she cried out in pain.

The other reiver left off drawing up Fransag's skirts to howl with laughter at his fellow's misfortune.  When he began to curse him, the ravisher only fell deeper into sotted hilarity.  So grotesque in its callous cruelty was the scene that Saelon wondered if she had slipped into madness: one man, standing heedless amid a spreading pool of his own blood, bellowing at another, who crouched over Fransag's all but bare body, his ready yard bobbing as if it guffawed with him.

From where she lay, hugging her pain-numbed arm to her breast, Saelon could see Fransag's hand, freed by her tormentor's inattention, groping about the edge of the hearth as if seeking something, clawing and worrying at one of the curbstones.

The reiver she had cut grew unsteady on his feet, the swartness of his skin giving his bled-out face an ugly color; when he fell silent and sank down on one knee, the other also quieted, wiping tears of heartless mirth from his scabbed face.  "You must always feel the bitches over, Yaro," he crowed.

That was when Fransag wrenched up a curbstone and smacked it against his head: a weak blow, but surprise lent it force, and he fell from her, face twisting into anger as she reared up over him.  "You want to play rough?" he snarled, reaching up to catch her wrist.

She gave him the left one, and brought the stone down on his head again with the right, from a better angle this time, with all the weight of its fall and the strength remaining in her arm.  Again, and again, and again she struck him, grunting with the effort like a farrowing sow, until the reiver's face was a red ruin and her creamy breast speckled with his gore.

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Notes

**Thyme** (wild thyme, _Thymus polytrichus_ ): a very versatile herb of dry grasslands and dunes, this was commonly used as a tea and to scent linen.  It was also considered one of the strongest tonics, particularly for nerves and chest complaints.

**Pennyroyal** ( _Mentha pulegium_ ): a medicinal herb, taken to aid digestion, clear phlegm, and for menstrual complaints; it also repels insects and mice, so was widely used as a strewing herb.

**Peat hags** : moorland with a thick layer of peat.  This is the one where Saelon and her folk cut the peats they use for fuel, which has left deep trenches (the best peat is some way down).

**Bint** : a derogatory term for a woman, analogous to "wench."  It came into British English from Arabic after WWII, but I use it here to reflect foreign influences in Angmar.

**Ben** : Scots, the inner chamber of a two-roomed house, the bedchamber.

**Paps** : nipples or teats.

**Stoat** ( _Mustela erminea_ ): a small weasel, reputed to be one of the most bloodthirsty animals; I was told a horror story in Scotland where the young couple making out in the car were devoured alive by a swarm of stoats.  Stoats are brown in summer, but their coats turn white in winter, except for the black tip of their tails; their pelts are the ermine of royalty.

**Cods** : a cod is a purse, or the outer pod or husk of a seed; therefore, a euphemism for the scrotum.

**Yard** : a rod or pole; therefore, a euphemism for the penis.


	11. Blood-dimmed Tide

_"The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man."  The virtue of heroism must lie, therefore--according to a view of this kind--not in the will to reform, but in the courage to affirm, the nature of the universe._

\--William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell," quoted in Joseph Campbell, _Masks of God: Occidental Mythology_

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"Saelon."  Fransag touched her hair with a tremulous, gory hand.  "Are you sore hurt?"

The concern in her harsh, scream-cracked voice was an ember of humanity in this dreadful, blood-drenched place.  "I do not think so."  Tucking her throbbing right hand--the fingers moved, a little--under the other arm, Saelon cradled her head in the left and sat up.  The room heaved like sea-swell, then settled after a few breaths.  "You?"

Fransag shuddered, but shook her head.  "I must look in the ben," she said, as if trying to command herself.

Her mother and babe should be there.  "Shall I go with you?"

Biting her lip, the goodwife regarded her with a doubtful eye.  "No," she decided.  "Sit a while longer."

Saelon watched her go, clutching the rent bodice of her dress in one hand and scrubbing the bloody fingers of the other against her skirts.  When she passed through the doorway, the silence was terrible, hope straining beyond reason--

The keening, when it began, was a wretched sort of release.

Drawing her hand from her head, Saelon was dimly surprised to find it red.  Her blood, or the reiver's?  She felt over her skull with slow care, finding no more than a tender lump and clotted hair; no bones seemed broken in her hand, but she wished she had a pail of icy water to plunge it in, to deaden the pain.

Lucky, to have suffered no worse.  All she wanted was to sit here for a bit, until her head cleared . . . but she must not.  Hesitantly she got to her feet and made her way to Tearlag, who had not moved all this while.  Reaching out to brush a tear from her bruised cheek, Saelon asked, "And you.  How sorely are you hurt?"

"I . . . not except . . . ."  She faltered into silence once more, eyes brimming over.  "The babe and Mistress Gràinne . . . ."

Saelon leaned against her, setting an arm around her shoulders.  "Dead?"

"The babe.  Mistress Gràinne . . . I do not know."

"What of the other children?"

"They were playing outside, when they came."

Heaving a sigh that was concern as much as relief, Saelon pushed herself up again, steadying herself on Tearlag's shoulder.  "We must find them.  Change your dress and fetch your cloak."  They must find them, and get to the hall before the others the reivers had spoken of came.

As the serving woman groped for her bundle of possessions beneath a bench, Saelon made her way to the ben.  There was less blood, but more disorder.  All the kists had been thrown open and overturned, as if the reivers had been angry to find so little of value: children's clothes were strewn across the floor; Fransag's one small cloth for the board, embroidered with twining vines and roses, lay torn, muddied by a grinding boot.

Fransag herself was crouched by her mother's thick bed of springy heather, clutching a bundle that must be her youngest to her breast, racked by sobs.  Saelon found, when she reached her side and laid a hand on her back, that Gràinne breathed still . . . but that labored rasp was sensibly weaker, the withered face a silent cry of pain, eyes clenched shut and twisted mouth gaping open.  "Was she . . . ?"

The goodwife growled, voice grown awful, "I wish I had not killed him.  Now I could make him suffer as he deserved."

"Tearlag says the children were outside; I have set her to find them.  Come," Saelon urged quietly, "let us wrap her well, and think of how we are to get her to the hall.  The horses should--"

"I am not leaving."

Saelon stared.  "Did you not hear them say others would be coming?"

Wrapping her arms tightly around the still, silent babe, Fransag said, "I will keep my house until my husband returns."

There was no arguing with such a tone, yet Saelon tried.  "And if he does not?"

"Then I will keep it for my sons."

Perhaps she could find no answer to this because of the ache in her head.  The men slain already . . . was it true, or only the reivers' wish, voiced to plunge them deeper in woe?  How many of these foul creatures were there, and where had they come from?  The one, Yaro--a name more outlandish than his speech--was no man of these parts, sallow as Partalan.  They were like the _raugs_ , evil sprung up as if from the earth itself.

If they came, the heavy door of sea-seasoned oak, hewn and hung by Dwarves, should balk them, at least for a time.  Yet that would be of use only if aid were in the offing.  Who would rescue them, if Halpan and Partalan were dead?  Veylin and his folk had gone to their mountain home for the winter; even if Dwarves were at Gunduzahar, three leagues must be dared to reach them.

Surely reivers could not have slain all the men out searching for Fokel, scattered as they were.  Halpan and Maelchon had gone towards the oakwood, and meant to continue along the flanks of the hills; Partalan and Canand had taken the rougher ground to the north, Gaernath and Finean the south.  Perhaps the reivers knew of only one of the pairs; perhaps they did not know of the cliff-hall--someone must have seen them, if they had ventured to where it could be seen!

Teetering between hope and despair, she could not decide what they must do, beyond finding the missing children.  One thing at a time.  Let them find the little ones, and then she would think what to do next.

Leaving Fransag to her lamentation, she returned to the but--frighting Tearlag, who had only just begun to unfold another dress.  "Hssh," Saelon soothed, as though the woman were a skittish horse, and went to close the door and drop the bar.  "Make haste, now."  While Tearlag dressed, she found the basket of peats and built up the dying fire, trying to restore some warmth to the house, then approached the reiver Fransag had battered as if he were an adder, prodding him with a foot to reassure herself he was dead.

Quite.  Glancing from him to his fellow, Saelon felt her gorge rise: not at the butchery so much as their cruelty, monsters in the shape of men.  Their corpses could not lie here, foul and stinking, stark reminders of violation; not if any remained under this roof.  Kneeling, Saelon began unbuckling his belt, slowed by disgust and her swelling fingers.  When the tongue of leather was free, she drew the belt off, sword and pouch still attached, and flung it all towards the corner.  If there was anything of value there, they could recover it later.  "Help me," she told Tearlag, going to his feet.  "We will put him on the dunghill."

Together they dragged him out, hesitating on the threshold to peer timidly around.  Yet all appeared placid without, nothing stirring but the wind-tossed manes and fluttering tails of the ill-used horses, and the bare branches of rowan and may.

Did the trees lose their beneficence with their leaves, Saelon wondered, or was this rowan she had given for the dooryard too young to have much power against evil?

Having tumbled the body onto the midden, Saelon looked about, as Tearlag stood trembling beside her, surely from fear more than cold, so close did she clutch her cloak.  "Ros!" Saelon dared to call, hoping the children were near enough to hear.  The day was chill, and Malmin at least--not yet three--too tender to bear it long.  "Uspag!"  How far would they have fled, hearing Tearlag's cries?

Nothing.  The wind soughed in the grass, blowing her voice away.

They were hauling the second corpse past the sheep-fank when Tearlag froze, staring at the stubby remnant of the last hayrick with wide, stricken eyes.  Heart leaping like a hare, Saelon looked that way.

Something moved, in the hay.

The serving woman dropped the ankle she held and bolted for the house, leaving Saelon there alone.  Oh, why had she taken the swordbelt from the body?  She did not even have her knife--

What emerged was black and small and bristling with pale stems of weathered grass.  "Mam?"  Uspag cried out fretfully, wriggling from the rick.  "Where's Mam?  I'm hungry!"

Saelon ran to him, heedless of the queerness of her head, heart hammering as hard for joy as it had with terror.  "Uspag!"  Another angry wail came faintly from the hay.  Malmin.  That must be Malmin.

By the time she caught Fransag's youngest son up in her cloak, Ros had crept from their burrow, her little sister struggling in her arms.  "Mamma!  Mamma!" Malmin shrieked, before Ros clapped a small hand over her mouth and fiercely hissed, "Shush!  Or the monsters will get you!"

"Are the monsters gone?" Uspag asked, looking up at Saelon.

"The monsters are dead," Saelon told those grave young faces.  Monsters . . . .  These children had already survived _raugs_.  "But more may be about.  Run to the house, as quick as you can!"

They were not halfway across the yard when she heard hooves, galloping.

"Go on!" she urged Ros, who slowed when she stopped, turning about to look for the beasts.  Who was coming, from where?  Their men, returning?  Or more reivers?  "Get them in!"

The drumming came from up on the peat-moor: two horses; three . . . more?  She could not see, from here.

Behind her, Uspag was crying out, high and shrill, "Mam!  Mam!  Open the door!"

She could not bear not knowing.  Saelon ran towards the yard's white lip, to meet the pounding hoofbeats . . . but before she could reach it, a horse leapt down the bank: leapt and stumbled, nearly going down.  The rider wrenched its head up, raking already bloody flanks with cruelly spurred heels, and the beast bounded forward, wild-eyed, pink froth flying from its muzzle.

Doom.  Still, she fled.  Vain, to race such a long-legged steed; vain to cower behind dwarf-laid stone, should they fire the thatch.  She had been told, again and again, that her assurance was rash; that she put too much confidence in seclusion and the sea.

The sea was not here.  She could not even hear the babble of the river, only the thud of hooves coming up on her left to cut her off from the house.  Further back there was the pause in flight and landing thump of another horse taking the bank.  She would not make the door.  Veering aside, she pelted towards the hurdles of the fank, anything that would hinder a rider.

The second man put his beast over the far side of the fold and reined up, the better to catch her if she sought refuge there.  Feeling like a mouse between two stoats, Saelon cast a desperate eye towards the thorny may, wondering if she could reach it, and worm her way far enough in--

A man's harsh cry of pain and dismay snatched her glance back again, in time to see the rider in the fank tumble from his mount, a feathered shaft in his back.  Yet another horse dropped from the pale lip of land--one she knew well.

Dírmaen was crouched low over Mada's neck, a naked sword in his hand, its brightness already dimmed by blood.

Saelon gaped, thunderstruck, forgetting flight in her amazement . . . and the first reiver leapt from his horse, knocking her to the ground.  For a moment, she was crushed by his weight, gasping for breath, gagging on the rancid stench of a man long unwashed--then his arm was a bar across her throat, choking her as he hauled her to her feet, steel ringing as he drew.  "Stop, if you would not see her dead!" her captor shouted, in the same barbarous accent as the one she had slain.

Mada squealed, so sharply did Dírmaen draw him up, sliding from the saddle before the gelding came to a halt.  "Release her or die," Dírmaen commanded, voice harsher than Saelon had ever heard.

The reiver laughed, defiant scorn.  "Release her and die, you mean!  I see your archer waiting for a shot."

Her fingers slipped on the greasy leather of his sleeve as she strove to slacken his hold, struggling for breath.  Beyond Dírmaen, atop the bank, a fourth man sat a bright bay, his Ranger-grey cloak snapping in the wind as he held his bow at full draw, arrow ready to fly.

"Why do you hold back?" the reiver cried, almost taunting.  "Do not tell me you value this trull.  She seems much the worse for wear."  He dragged her backward, towards the horses tied to the thornbush.  "Come at me now, if she is not a safe-conduct!"

Dírmaen's face was pale; his eyes dark.  "You cannot escape."

"Tender-hearted fools!"  Her captor moved more quickly, with greater confidence.  "Dog me if you like, while my men continue to prey on these folk, but I will keep close-tied to this bitch until I come home.  Yaro!" he shouted towards the house.  "Dunstan!"

Saelon would have told him they were dead, for spite, had he not throttled it to a gurgle.  Her sight was dim about the edges, what wits remained seeking air and escape; escape, so they could slay this beast . . . .

"What men?"  Dírmaen jeered, voice rough as a rasp.

They had reached the horses.  The reiver yanked the reins of the nearer free with his swordhand, not loosing his hold on her neck.  "You know you have not found us all," he came back, a growling sneer.

He must get her on the horse with him, if he would use her for a shield.  He must shift his grip then.

"So you hope."

Must Dírmaen taunt him?  The reiver's hold tightened, so she could draw no breath at all.  She clawed at his sinewy arm, knowing herself too feeble, darkness closing in about her--

When, suddenly, her throat was free, all she could do was gasp and heave, like a fish caught on drying sands, not caring that he clutched her about the breast, hoisting her up with him as he mounted.

"So I know!" her captor flung back, setting his spurred heels to the horse.

The beast cried out and started--but _back_ , not forward, rearing up as an arrow plunged into its breast.  Swearing, the reiver let her drop, needing some hand to keep his own seat.  Down she went, beneath the stamping, pain-maddened hooves.

Dírmaen leapt forward with a shout, arms flung wide, flashing his long sword at the plunging beast, which shied and spun away, bucking.

When Saelon dared raise her head, the horse was running towards the river, riderless, and Dírmaen was rushing the reiver, who had rolled to a crouch, sword still in his hand.  They met with a ringing shirr of steel.

Hoofbeats behind her, again.  Saelon swung around, heart in her throat--but it was only the archer-Ranger, and he hardly looked at her as he dismounted a few paces away, closely watching the men beyond her.  "Come," he urged, holding out his hand.  "Come away!  He must not be worrying about you!"

No, he must not.  Clambering to her feet, Saelon cast a glance that way.  The reiver had found his feet, though he was giving ground before Dírmaen's longer reach and blade.  Why was the creature not dead already?  "Go to him," Saelon cried.

But instead of rushing to Dírmaen's aid, the Ranger took her arm in a firm yet gentle grip and drew her further off.  "He will have him," he hushed to soothe her, regarding her with grave concern in his green-grey eyes before flicking a glance at the battle.  "You are sorely wounded, lass."

Fury boiling up, Saelon struck at him, pathetic though the blow was.  "The blood is not mine, fool!  Kill the dog!"  Dírmaen seemed to be flagging, missing an opening, only just blocking a cunning riposte.  "Go!"

Yet still he tarried, gazing on her with uncertain eyes.  If she had had the strength, Saelon would have ripped the sword from his scabbard and gone to Dírmaen's aid herself.  "Very well," he finally allowed, dubiously.  "Go into the house, or at least keep well back."

The reiver deflected a sweeping, double-handed blow aimed at his head with his short, thick blade, then whipped it around to chop at Dírmaen's exposed left arm.  Saelon flinched as the blow struck, and the Ranger by her side shouted, bounding forward, drawing his own sword as he ran.

Dírmaen hunched, left hand falling from his hilt, sword-arm jerking back--and as the reiver stood open, recovering his blade, Dírmaen punched his point into his foe's body with a savage thrust.

Saelon was running before the reiver fell, though her feet were like great stones, heavy, slow, as she watched blood begin to soak Dírmaen's sleeve.  Dírmaen himself seemed insensible to the wound, yanking his blade from the reiver as the man recoiled, staring in astonishment.  The other Ranger had halted a little away, standing watchfully by as Dírmaen cut the man's throat, brusque as a butcher.

He did not seem to see her until she was plucking at the cut and bloodied fabric of his sleeve, seeking to know how badly he was wounded, instead staring down on his gurgling foe with a strangely flat expression, face ghastly pale.  When he did turn his head to stare at her, however, he started, and caught her by the shoulders.  "Saelon!  Are you much hurt?  They did not--"

"Not I," she assured him, trying to put his hands off.  She must see to his wound . . . and after all she had suffered today, a man's clutch was distasteful.  "But Tearlag and, rot their souls, Gràinne. . . ."

He looked stricken, his grasp only tightening.  "I should not have left you.  I--"  And then he bobbled, his knees buckling.

She could not have caught him if he were not so close, and his comrade so prompt to leap in and take him from her, a look of startled dismay on his face.  Yet even in the brief time she grappled with his long weight, Saelon found Dírmaen's back soaked with a sticky wetness, and her hands, relieved of their burden, came back crimson with fresh blood.

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Notes

**But** : Scots, the outer part of a two-roomed house, the kitchen and main living space.

**Midden** : dungpile, trash heap.

**Fank** : Scots, from Gaelic; a sheepfold or pen.

**Trull** : whore.  As an interesting aside, the word is derived from "troll," the monster not the verb.

**Close-tied** : when dogs mate, the male's penis is trapped inside the female by its own swelling, binding them together for as much as half an hour.  This is refered to as a "tie."


	12. The Best Defense

_That island of England breeds very valiant creatures._

\--William Shakespeare, _Henry V_

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Sitting back in a hollow of Gunduzahar's dark slope, which sheltered him from the ceaseless wind without much restricting the view, Thyrnir tucked his hands further under his folded arms and puffed a stray lock of his beard from his mouth.  Before him, hummocky moorland stretched away to the snow-cloaked mountains; nothing moved across it that he could see, save a few hopeful crows drifting aimlessly over the winter-dulled land.  If the Noldo skulked out there, Thyrnir pitied him, for he would spy little from afar but the too-dark green of his own cloak.  The doors were well-concealed from prying eyes, by placement as much as spell.

So, another tedious watch: yet he would not have it otherwise.  Being charged with the keeping of the delf during his elders' absence had been gratifying, deeply so.  He was still young for such responsibility; the youngest of those who had remained behind.  Not that it had appeared onerous to the others--a small place, a few fellows for company, naught to do but watch and keep the place in good order; practically a holiday! Rekk had declared when he handed over the great ring of keys.  But aside from his mother, none of them knew of the hard-won hoard of fire opal that lay somewhere within, the hidden heart of Veylin's foundation.  The weight of that trust was a burden, for all that he bore it willingly.  He would not quarrel with quietness.

Clad in stout woolen of his mother's cutting and looking forward to a flagon of mulled ale once Fram came to relieve him, Thyrnir found it no great hardship to sit in sharp-eyed stillness, body dutifully idle while his mind turned over various concerns.  Would the sea-cast wood the Men of White Cliffs took from the shore serve to make pit-props, and if so, what might they ask for the timber?  Since the Elves were displeased by their joint inroads upon the oakwood, it behooved the Men to help them to some other supply.  He must turn the seasoning wood upon the racks tomorrow, and find a piece suitable to cleave into shelves for Bersa; withies needed cutting for barrel hoops.  If he went north for them, to the pool on the brown burn, there were always trout to be had, which would be a pleasant change from salt beef and pork . . . .

The chirruping of larks caught his ear away on the southern approaches, though it took him some time to spot the drab birds' low, swooping flight; then some stonechats went up, winging the same way.  What had set them in motion?

Shading his eyes from the sun, falling now from the noon, Thyrnir made out an upright figure moving purposefully across the patchy heather.  Too small for a Man; not a Dwarf, even had its cloak not been so muted a brown, very like the larks.  Surely it was not a Hobbit--what could have brought one of those comfort-loving folk so far from the Shire, and at this season?

The trotting figure stumbled as if with weariness, nearly falling, and halted, hands braced on knees, gazing up at the hill that housed the delf.

Hanadan.  Hammer and tongs, what was that imp doing out here, so far from home?  Was he alone?  Thyrnir scanned the moor and craned his neck to peer around the shoulder of the hill, for Saelon was apt to come up from the shore.  No one but the boy.  Did he know where Gunduzahar lay, or had he run all this way as a lark and been struck by the handsome, flat-topped hill?

Thyrnir settled back in his hollow, watching Hanadan through narrowed eyes.  A mettlesome, pleasant child . . . though sometimes a trial, for all his liking for Dwarves, too ready to venture beyond his strength and skill.  If this rash foray were rewarded, what would prevent him from descending upon them whenever the fancy took him?  Naught but foul weather, he guessed, for neither his uncle nor Saelon could restrain him.  Such forwardness would be intolerable.

Yet the boy's slender shoulders were low, as though freighted with more than fatigue.  Had he run away again, rebelling against his elders?

Straightening up, Hanadan cried out towards the hill, a high thin call like that of some moorland bird, what words it might hold lost to the wind.

Torn, Thyrnir frowned.  So young a child ought not to be out alone.  He did not understand how Men, doting on their children in some ways, could be so neglectful of them in others, careless of their safety.  What if ill befell the boy out here, or on his way home?

He could not bear to have a share in the blame for that.  With a vexed sigh, Thyrnir rose and began striding down the hill.

When Hanadan spotted him, he shouted, a less plaintive noise, and ran to meet him with hectic speed; as he neared, his cries grew intelligible.  "Help!  Help!  Oh, help!"

Thyrnir ran, too, and when he reached Hanadan, the child threw himself into his arms, blowing like a bellows, quite speechless.  "Ho, there," Thyrnir chided gruffly, holding him off a little to look at him.  "What are you doing out here, so far from home, and alone?"  He looked even more discreditable than usual, his slight frame bedaubed with mud and flecked with bits of dead bracken, bare cheeks slubbered as though by weeping; there were hints of red in the filth on his unshod feet.

"Strange horses," the boy gasped out.  "Fransag screamed--and a man--ran from the house--"

"Robbers?"

"And Aunt told me to run, and get everyone in the hall, and bar the door--"

Aunt was what the child called Saelon.  So prudent a reaction to fleeing robbers, however, seemed alarm in one who had faced down three armed and vengeful Dwarves.  "Where was Maelchon?  And Halpan?"  Thyrnir hoped the husbandman had not been hurt, not only because he still owed much for his house.  Had Halpan and the surly Dunlending left for Srathen Brethil already?  Surely not, with the heights still buried in snow.

"Out looking for Fokel and the cattle."

"The cattle are missing?"  Their stock was the only real wealth the Men had; almost the only thing worth thieving.

Hanadan nodded, snuffling, and drew his too-small cloak closer about him.  He had begun to shiver, the wind chilling his sweat.  "Fokel did not bring them home yesterday."

Thyrnir gazed on him sternly.  "None of this explains what brings you here."  If thieves were abroad, it was even more outrageous that this child should be out, where he was too apt to run into danger.  "Why are you not in the hall, as your Lady ordered?"  Even if all the menfolk of White Cliffs were away, seeking to recover their beasts, it would have been fitter for Saelon to come herself, and ask properly for their aid.

"But who is to save Aunt?" Hanadan cried.  "Guaire says the man hit her and dragged her into the house, and his mother still screaming--" tears started down his smeared face, sprung by rage as much as fear, it seemed "--and they will not let me have a sword--"

Not mere robbers, and that reckless woman of Men in their clutch.  Thyrnir seized the boy's hand.  "Come!  Can you run a little further?"

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"Mother!" Thyrð exclaimed, breath quick with running.  "Veylin begs you will come to the Great Hall immediately!"

Auð stared, setting down the cabinet she wished to try on the other side of the parlour hearth.  "Immediately?"  Yet Thyrð had not waited to explain, hastening on to his room.  Following after, Auð's heart chilled when she saw her son fling open the chest that held his arms and draw out his ringmail.  "Are we under attack?" she demanded.

"No," he replied, curt reassurance.  "Not us.  White Cliffs.  Uncle will explain.  I must arm."

She went, questions beating at her brain.  Enemies so near?  It was only a week since they arrived: had they been in danger as their long packtrain plodded down from the northern pass?  Veylin had obstinately refused to put off the journey until later in the season, when the weather would be fairer--had he known, or guessed, of some peril, and taken the chance to move before they would be expected?  But now they--she--would be pinned here, until the ways were safe again . . . .

Veylin had thought to ride over to White Cliffs this morning, to call on the Lady and trade news of what had passed since they parted in the Havens, but a louring squabble between Prut and Laufi over precedence had delayed his going until the trip was better put off.  Good fortune disguised as bad; otherwise he and those with him might have ridden into battle unawares and ill-prepared.

Sút was coming down the corridor, another of her chests in her arms.  "Where are you rushing to?" she asked with a puzzled frown.

Or perhaps it was concern: her friend was still uneasy, the delf strange to her.  "The Great Hall--there is ill news from White Cliffs."  How ill, she would not say until she knew better herself; no need to alarm Sút without need.

"Wait!  Let me put this in my chambers, and I will come with you."

How was she to put her off without worrying her, or making light of what might be dire?  "Hurry, then!  Veylin asked for haste."

Sút promptly plunked the chest down, sliding it to the wall.  "How could White Cliffs call for haste?" she wondered curiously, turning back to join her.  "The Men are three leagues off, aren't they?"

"Yes."  Three leagues for the news to come; time to arm and organize their own defense, then three more back again before the men could reach their beleaguered allies.  Auð hoped the Lady and her folk were not hard-pressed.

Thyrnir jogged past them, face set and eyes hot.  Auð guessed he, too, was going to fetch his byrnie and helm.

She expected to see the flame-haired youth when they reached the hall, or the Lady--belatedly realized that Sút would be shocked to discover herself in the presence of aliens without warning--but found only Veylin and Nordri arguing in heated undertones by the dining tables, Veylin's arms piled at his feet and a short, ugly troll-spear clenched in his fist instead of his stick.

The catch of her breath was brief: of course he would go.  "Veylin?" she called.

"Ah, there you are!  I hear you," her brother told the rusty-bearded mason with quiet vehemence, "but I am determined.  If you are also set on going, Barði will have to hold the delf."

"You would leave our women in the care of Broadbeams?" Nordri charged, a hissing whisper.

Sút came to an abrupt halt.

Veylin huffed in angry dismissal.  "No, I would leave them in your charge."

"What is this?" Sút demanded, voice dropping perilously.

"Caution only," Veylin assured her, as if there were not a weapon already in his hand.  "Our friends, the Men at White Cliffs, are troubled by cattle thieves.  Two of the brigands have gone to Maelchon's house while the menfolk are out hunting them, and the women who are not safe shut in the cliff-hall require assistance.  You need not worry," he finished with certain surety, "the brigands could not pass our doors even if they could find them.  But the sooner they are slain, the easier we will all be.  I have asked Nordri to remain here against unforeseen disaster."

"And I say," the mason rumbled, no less resolute, "that you are fitter for that duty than I.  Should the worst befall--"

"They are feckless Men, not Elves!" Veylin snapped, more than irritated.  "Unless they have found a way to bring an army over the snow-choked passes, how can they withstand a dozen Dwarves?  I will go, and assure myself that the Lady is well."

As Nordri cast a glance of appeal her way, Auð brusquely signed her resignation.  Her brother would not be kept back by his lameness.  She had no real fears for him--if he could slay the fiend that had maimed him, Men should not trouble him . . . save for his madly incautious friend.  "I would be happy to have Nordri stay," she granted, with a complaisance she hoped would soothe Sút, "but do not require so much assurance.  Barði is more than capable--and, of course, Hlin is here."  Surely no one doubted the young coppersmith would be zealous in protecting his mother.  "You wished to see me?" she asked Veylin, turning the subject.

"Yes.  I have a charge for you, too, if you are willing."

Auð regarded her brother with surprise.  "What?"

Gesturing for her to follow, he stumped over to the hearth beyond the archway, where a chair was drawn up close to the fire.  Peering over its back, Veylin rumbled, "Awake, are you?"

"Yes, Master Veylin."

What was this?  Auð stared at the slight, blanket-wrapped figure huddled in the seat, which stared back with wide, marveling yet uncertain eyes.  It was dwarf-high, but no Dwarf was ever so slender, or beardless.  Bare, bony ankles and feet, mud-caked, stuck out beyond the ragged hems of its trews, and the arm that clutched the blanket around its narrow shoulders was pitifully thin.  Behind her, Sút uttered a chopped oath in Khuzdul.

"Auð, Sút, this is Hanadan, Halpan's nephew.  Hanadan," Veylin told the starveling, "this is Auð, who is close kin to me."

Hanadan ducked his dark head.  "At your service, Master Auð."

She believed she bowed.  "At yours, and your family's."  A Man?  Nephew . . . Halpan was young . . . .  Taking Veylin's arm, Auð said, "Excuse us," and drew her brother away, past Sút, who gaped at the little Man with appalled fascination.  When she had him on the other side of the stout black pillar, she demanded in Khuzdul, "Is that a man-child?"

Veylin nodded, mouth grimly set.

"What is he doing here?"

"He brought word of the brigands at White Cliffs."

For a moment, Auð did not know where to start.  "They sent a child?!"

Veylin fingered the shaft of the spear, lips pursed in a way that boded ill for the brigands.  "I do not think so.  Saelon charged him with getting the folk at the cliff into the hall, from what he says.  But he is a clever child.  He knew they required aid."

"And where to find us?"

"The hill, it seems, but not the door.  Thyrnir found him crying out at the foot of the slope."  He set a hand on hers, which still gripped his arm.  "Will you care for him, until we can return him to his kin?  He may be one of only two left of his line."

"You just made light of the danger," she reminded him.

"For us.  But if all the Men skilled in arms were away . . . ."  His eyes were dark, hooded.  "I do not know how many brigands there are, to swing a ram.  Or if they are the kind of Men who would set a fire against the door."

"What good would that do them?" Auð asked, baffled but catching his fear.

"The door is wood."

"Wh--"  She broke off, and shoved him towards the tidy pile of his mail and other gear.  "Go!  But I will expect explanations when you return!"

"Thank you."

When he had left her, she ran a hand distractedly through her beard and took a deep breath.  A child of Men!  Boys she had mastered long ago, but what did she know of Men?  And such a charge, to care for another's child without their leave.  What would his mother think?

Not that she appeared to care much for him.  Scrawny, bootless--

Three leagues, bootless, to seek aid for his kin.  There must be love there.

Returning to their guest, Auð found the child and Sút still staring at each other, Sút with wary and increasing distaste, while the boy looked more uneasy than before.  This would not do.  "In our haste to aid your people," she owned, "we have neglected a proper welcome, Hanadan.  Let us make amends now.  I have met your uncle Halpan, and the Lady also.  This," she gestured the other woman forward, "is my friend, Sút."

Voice shrill and piping as a bird's, the boy promptly gave his bob.  "At your service, Master Sút."

He had been taught manners, at any rate.  "At yours and your family's," Sút answered, after a pause.  Looking at Auð, she asked in _iglishmêk_ , _This is a child?_

_His uncle overlooks him by near a pace._   Yet how much a child was he?  "May I ask, Hanadan, how many years you have?"  Should he be offered strong drink, after his ordeal?  She ought to have asked Veylin; but a glance showed he was now deep in discussion with Rekk and Bersi, as the latter helped him arm.

"Nearly nine," Hanadan answered with assertive pride.

"Nine?"  Auð hoped her beard masked her astonishment so well as Sút's.  Why, he was practically a babe!  Hardly old enough to be let out of the suite unattended, let alone the delf!  Yet that explained why he bore no weapon.  "And how much longer before you are reckoned a man?"  Men were, she had been told, short-lived.

What she got was more a complaint than an answer, a first hint of petulance.  "Aunt Saelon says I may not go to the Havens until I am as old as Gaernath."

"Gaernath, too, I have met.  What is his age?"  About Thyrð's, Auð guessed.  A youngster's patience would be tried by the prospect of three decades.

"He will be eighteen this summer."

How brief were Men's lives?  The Lady's folk were direly short of men, else she would not rule over them, but to lay a man's duties on mere children . . . .  "Well," Auð decided, trying to see one who topped her by a palm as a wean, "you are very grubby."  Holding out her hand, she said, "Come; I am sure you would like to wash up before you eat.  Sút, would you see if Bersa has anything fit for our guest?"

She left him playing with the taps in the washroom, amazed and delighted by hot water that did not come from a kettle, while she went to find clean garments.  Thyrð had not worn the dark brown tunic since they first came here; Thyrnir, now favoring leather breeks that did not catch sawdust and woodshavings, could spare a pair of trews.

Yet while the tunic suited Hanadan's dark coloring, it did not sit well on his slender shoulders, and it would have been better if the trews covered more of his spindly legs.  Auð did not think there were boots large enough for his feet in the delf, so it was as well that once the dirt had been scrubbed away, he proved to have soles calloused hard as horn.  It would do for now--he would not soil the furniture when he sat on it--though if his stay stretched beyond a few days she would have to run up something more to his measure.

"Why," Hanadan asked as they returned to the hall, "is some of the rock dark and some light?"

"Because the pale rock comes from another place," Auð explained.  "From the cliffs where you live, I am told."

If you could look past the baldness of his face, he had a sweet smile.  "So that is what they did with all that stone!  Gormal said Nordri would sell it."

"Who is Gormal?"

The child answered as blithely as he asked.  "Maelchon's eldest son."

"Is he older than you?"

"A little," was the dismissive reply.

A few months?  A few years?  "Why did he not come in your place, or with you?"

That earned her a peculiar look.  "He is Edain," Hanadan said, as if that explained all.

They had reached the dining table nearest the kitchen.  "Be seated," Auð told him, "and I will bring your meal."

Within his sanctum, Bersa was holding forth to Sút as he punched and kneaded a great mass of dough.  "--pestered by more of them, the longer we are here.  After they have traveled so far, hospitality demands that we feed them . . . .  They eat more than we get from them in trade!  Useless creatures, always needing rescuing from something: fiends, Elves, now mere thieves--"

"I cannot believe," Auð broke in, for the cook would happily carp for hours, "that they have eaten as much as they served you all at their harvest feasts.  You are very fond of the Lady's beef, I hear."  He had also passed over the many bolls of barley that had come to them from Maelchon, in payment for plow and hearth.

"One must balance the scales somehow," Bersa grumbled.  "This gangrel may stand no higher than is decent, but I wager he will eat like a stinted packman."

Enough.  Bringing out her purse, Auð snapped a gold coin down on the sideboard.  "Half a crown says the man-child eats less than you the rest of this day."

The fat cook sputtered.  "I have been toiling over a supper almost no one will eat--no dinner, save a morsel or two while tasting the dishes--"

"The boy has run three leagues and missed his dinner entirely, so the advantage should be to you, even were you not a Dwarf.  Will you take my wager?"

Bersa gave her a malignant look.  "How is it that a widow such as yourself can afford to risk good coin on such foolishness?"

"How is it that a tight-fisted bachelor such as yourself cannot?"

Sút asked, once the cook had disappeared into his pantry, "You like these Men?"

Tucking the half-crown back into her purse, Auð considered.  "I do not know," she decided.  "They are queer creatures, and I have seen only a handful, for a few hours; no more.  Yet the men who have spent the most time in their company think well of them--did not hesitate to hasten to their aid.  What can we do but trust them in this, as in other things?  Take a couple of ponies," she jested with dry displeasure, "and ride home to Sulûnduban?"

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Notes

**Lark** (skylark, _Alauda arvensis_ ): a bird of grassland and moor, conspicous only by the male's singing flight.

**Stonechat** ( _Saxicola torquata_ ): a red-breasted, (British) robin-like bird, favoring rough grassland.

**Byrnie** : a chainmail shirt.  This is the Scandinavian-influenced Middle English term; "corslet" is Middle French.

**Feckless** : weak, ineffectual, irresponsible.

**_Iglishmêk_** : dwarven gesture-language.

**Wean** : Scots, "wee one," a young child.

**Gangrel** : Scots, vagrant.

**Half a crown** : two shillings and six pence; equal to an eight of a pound of silver.


	13. Fighting for Strangers

_We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in._

\--Thomas Paine, _The American Crisis_

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Three leagues, Veylin decided, was a damnable distance: too near for detachment, too far for fellowship.  It gave him too much time for thought as he kept his pony, sullen beneath the added burden of steel, up to the inexorable pace of his companions.

Hours had passed--three, four?--since Saelon had been taken.  Was she still alive?  Wise in many things, but not in defense, her fierce temper was a blade that cut both ways.  She might have already routed the thieves; they might have struck her down out of hand.  Men's brutish use of their women he had seen in his traveling days: kicks, blows . . . worse; calculated oppression, the subjugation of body as well as soul.  He could not imagine Saelon suffering such treatment, living.  Therefore the mind's hope that her shrewdness had prevailed once again did nothing to ease the grimness of his heart, arming itself against whatever blow might fall.

Their line, spread wide to comb the rough ground for foes, was passing the slumped scrap of moraine that dammed the damp of the bog-moor when a shout came from Veylin's left, on the ridge itself.  Not the war-cry of foes found; against the sky, Nyr waved Rekk's party on the inland flank onward, even as a Man rose to greet him.

"Keep on along the shore!" Veylin called to Bersi, who seconded him on the seaward wing, as he turned his pony aside.

Partalan, bloodied and wrathful beside the cairn Gaernath had raised over Thekk and Vestri, with the bodies of a strange Man and a not-unfamiliar horse at the moor-side foot of the boulder ridge.  Another stranger lay stretched across the cairn as if he had been attacking one perched on its rounded peak, his blood rusting on the white stones, while Canand, Saelon's cowherd, sat nursing a hacked shin.  "What has brought you lot out of your hole?" Partalan growled, abandoning his wounded companion to Nordri's hands.

Mounted, Veylin could look down on him a little.  "The same thing that has brought you out of yours, I venture.  Hanadan brought us word of brigands."

"Hanadan?" the swordsman exclaimed.  "How does he know of these dogs?"

Saelon's hound, he was styled; his lord's last command to defend his kinswomen.  "They have taken Maelchon's house.  And your Lady."

Had the situation not been so dire, Veylin would have enjoyed watching the clash of feeling on that ugly, broken-nosed face.  The Dunlending looked with disfavor on Veylin's friendship with Saelon; had once accused him of meddling with her, and in one as coarse-minded as Partalan, that was not a reflection on counsel given.  Only sottishness--and the matter of the fiends--had spared the swordsman correction beneath his axe.  There was a deep antipathy between them.

Yet others might now be meddling with his Lady, in the very sense he meant, and Veylin was bringing near a score of strongly armed Dwarves to her defense.  Which would the Man think the greater evil?  That marauders of his own race should sully Saelon, or her alliance--as he perversely imagined it--with a Dwarf?  His impotence, too, must rankle: that he could not afford to spurn alien aid.

In the end, Partalan salved his pride with fault-finding.  "Why are not more of you mounted?"

Nyr gave a scorn-chopped laugh.  "How is it that you are bereft of the beast that spares your legs?"  Unlike the folk of Srathen Brethil, Dúnedain as well as Edain, who would tramp far afoot, the Dunlending was adverse to any errand that did not call for a horse.

"That is my fault," Canand said, shamefaced, as Nordri swiftly bound up his wound.  "I was thrown when the reivers fell on us, and my horse ran off.  Partalan stayed by me.  That is his mount, down there."  He jerked his chin towards the dead beast below.

"Boots do not bolt when battle begins," Nyr declared, "and we go as swiftly as ponies over ground such as this, when arms are our only burden."

"Canand cannot," Partalan came back brusquely, "nor can we leave him wounded and alone, with raiders about.  The dun bolted homeward.  Catch him, when you come on him," he told Veylin, "and bring him back."

Veylin snorted, raising his brows.  "I am no groom, and have no way with such beasts.  Walk on and fetch him yourself!  Or stay and keep your comrade company.  We will send someone for you, once the folk at Habad are relieved."

"You cannot leave me here!"

"Then come, if you can keep up," Veylin said, as Nordri took up his axe again and stood.  "I will delay no longer."  Indeed, he grudged even that brief halt, though the pony was less unwilling to canter afterwards and soon he was back in his place between Thyrnir and Bersi.

Two strange horses and at least one brigand at Maelchon's; two more brigands taking Partalan and Canand in ambush halfway between Gunduzahar and White Cliffs.  Fokel and the cattle missing yesterday, and all the ablest Men scattered seeking them, exposed to such piecemeal attack.  That seemed the stratagem of a cunning mind; how many Men were at its command?  Two less than before . . . if there had been many, they could have carried White Cliffs by force; yet there must be enough for the brigands to divide as well.  They seemed to come in braces, and Hanadan said the Men went out in three parties.  No fewer than a half-dozen remaining, then, if the taking of the cattle was a draw and not simple thievery.  Were all but the two at Maelchon's out on the heather?  If Halpan and Gaernath did not serve their attackers as the Dunlending had, from what directions would the brigands come to White Cliffs?  Where were they laired, and had they left men in reserve there?  Where had they come from, with the mountains all but impassable?

Too many questions.  Answers, if any, lay on the other side of battle.

Sheep with new lambs scattered before his party as they crested the low boss of the bay's northern headland: not all the stock had been taken.  Yet there was no shepherd who cried greeting or challenge, and Veylin could see no one on the stubbled plain below the cliffs . . . only more sheep.

"There is a horse on the cliff-shelf," Thyrnir reported, shifting his grip further down the helve of his axe.  His young eyes saw further than most.  "A roan.  I see no Men."

None of White Cliff's beasts were roan.  The intruder must be at the foot of the cliff, by or in one of the caves, or the hall.  Looking over his band--Nordri would be sweeping the face and back of the nearer cliff with his half-dozen, while Rekk's party beat upriver, to come down to Maelchon's by the track--Veylin wondered how much advantage might be gained by crossing the plain under cover of the dunes, and coming at the cliff-shelf up the shoulder of the tower hill.  Already they were so near the sea that even Bersi looked uneasy beneath the copper-chased rim of his helm . . . and he would not get his pony up that way.  "Then they will not see us as we cross to the cliff-foot.  Thyrnir, make for the far side and come up the slope beyond the hall, so you can drive them towards us.  Fram, go up on the right of the burn; Oski, to the left of the track.  Climb quiet!  When Bersi comes up the track, that will be your signal to attack, unless you find the Men already engaged.  I will come after Bersi, when this beast's clatter will not give us away.  Go!" he urged, for Thyrnir had far to run.

By the time they splashed across the little ford and reached the plain, Veylin hated the sheep, whose flight and cries seemed more likely to give them away than aught else.  Saelon's collie added to the clamour, defying Fram with raised ruff and bared fangs, darting away from his kicks and barking furiously.  No one appeared at the top of the steep slope of talus by the time they reached its foot.  Was the roan's rider deaf?  Battering on the hall's door so determinedly that the din drowned the bleating below?  Already inside the hall?

Bersi started up the track--more treacherous than ever, mud churned ever deeper by foot and hoof--as the prentices crept through the grasses below the brink, frail and pale as white gold.  The horse snorted, the stamp of its uneasy hooves audible in the silence.  Where was its rider?  No one hammered upon the hall's oaken door, built to hinder fiends.  Unsettled as the unseen horse above, Veylin urged his pony up the track, unwilling to be behindhand in whatever might befall.

"Halt!" a Man commanded, as Bersi stepped onto the cliff-shelf.  "Who are you, and why have you come to Habad-e-Mindon?"

"Bersi, Berg's son, am I, friend to these folk, come to their aid.  Who are you, that we should not cut you down?"

His beast finally scrabbling up the last stretch--they must pave this!--Veylin saw a tall Man in a grey cloak, dark hair touched by frost, standing beside the great slab of cliff-fall that served as Saelon's threshing floor.  "Faelnoth, Ranger of the North."  The Man stood ready, sword in hand, eyeing the Dwarves drawing in about him as if they were the interlopers.

"The door is sound and shut!" Thyrnir called out, as he passed the hall.

That was hopeful, but Veylin kept his spear pointed at the Man, regarding him warily.  Yes, his cloak was pinned with the seven-rayed star of plain silver.  Yet Saelon had been repeatedly commanded to bring her people to her chieftain's realm.  Had he finally lost patience, and sent his men to bring them, willing or no, before they got this year's crop in the ground?  "What brings you here, Ranger?"

"Outlaws off Coldfell that we harried into Srathen Brethil.  They lost us in a mountain blizzard, and by the time we found them again, they had begun to prey on these folk.  Who are you, and by what right do you challenge me?"

Those Partalan had slain were swart men like himself, scraggly as mange-eaten wolves, not Dúnedain such as this.  "I am Veylin, Vali's son," he said, laying his spear across the horns of his saddle in token of peace, "lord of Gunduzahar and a chieftain of the Firebeards.  At my command the hall that shelters these folk was delved, and the Lady Saelon is my ally.  Do you have news of her?  She was taken at the house of Maelchon, by the river, I was told, along with Maelchon's wife."

"The dwarf-lord who, with Dírmaen, slew the _raugs_ of Srathen Brethil?"

Veylin scowled.  He did not recall Dírmaen giving any of the fiends its death-blow.  "The same."

The Ranger deigned to lower his sword.  "The Lady is at the house still, tending Dírmaen, who has been gravely wounded.  Four of the outlaws met their deaths there."

Dírmaen?  He had withdrawn, Auð had told him.  "I grieve to hear of Dírmaen's wounding, but the Lady is a skillful healer, as I have cause to know."  She lived, at least.  "Two more outlaws have been slain by the Lady's men, who searched for their missing cattle north of here.  You know her kinsmen are abroad as well?"

"So she told us.  But we wished to be sure the rest of her people were safe, and set them to guard so we might search."  The Ranger frowned over his shoulder at the hall.  "Yet no one answers at the door."

Veylin wondered how many the Ranger's "we" amounted to, before considering who might be within.  Rian; the fair-haired cottar lads with their wives and aged grandfather, Artan's infant sons; the sad-eyed dog-keeper; Finean's remaining daughter . . . Hanadan had spoken of Guaire, so at least some of Maelchon's many children.  "They should give credence to a strange Man's voice when Men have attacked them?  Thyrnir," he called, "a Dwarf's voice is beyond mistaking, even through so much oak.  See if they will open to you.

"I am glad to hear so many of the outlaws are dead," Veylin allowed, turning back to the Ranger as Thyrnir rapped on the door with the butt of his axe and shouted for Rian and Artan and Leod.  "Did any of the Lady's folk come to grief?"

Faelnoth's face grew grimmer still.  "Yes.  Though only a babe is dead, I believe."

The fearful wrath that had begun to die down in his heart flamed up again.  "How many of these outlaws remain, do you know?"

"Two, perhaps."  The Ranger considered the Dwarves about him with narrowed eyes.  Was he contemplating the use of so well-armed a band against what remained of his foes, or was the deepening of their anger sensible to him?

"Rian?" Thyrnir repeated, very loud.  "Yes, Hanadan reached us and is safe in Gunduzahar.  There is a Ranger here, who says they have slain the brigands at Maelchon's.  Open the door!  There are five of us, and if the Ranger is false, we will deal with him."

That did not please the Man, who still had not put up his sword--but then Men of the Star could be as mistrustful as Dwarves.  Keeping a watchful eye on him, Veylin rode closer to the hall door, and the rest followed after him.

The first to peer out was Leod, and seeing Thyrnir, the young cottar pushed the door a little further open, revealing the iron bar of a roasting jack clenched in his fist.  "You are a welcome sight," he muttered to Thyrnir, as he looked carefully around, then glanced back over his shoulder.  "Yes, lady, Master Veylin has come."

"Thank you, Leod," Rian said, touching his shoulder as she ventured out, clutching a shawl about her slim shoulders.  A fine imitation of her aunt's air, Veylin thought, until she spoke, for Saelon grudged any admission of need while the girl's relief was as naked as it was unashamed.  "Oh, Master Veylin!  Hanadan is safe, and Saelon too?"

But then the lass was far too young to be called lady and have charge of those who must huddle, frightened, within.  "Hanadan is well and in the care of my kin," he assured her, as soothingly as he could.  "I have not seen your aunt, but had word of her from this Man."

Sheathing his sword, the Ranger bowed low.  "Greetings, lady.  Faelnoth is my name, and I come to Argonui's service from the South Downs.  I left the Lady Saelon tending the wounds of my comrade Dírmaen, who I think you know.  You are Lord Halladan's daughter?"

A faint flush colored the lass's wan cheeks.  "Well met, Faelnoth," she answered, giving him a respectful curtsey.  "Yes, I am: Rian is my name.  I know Dírmaen well, and grieve to hear he is wounded.  Do you know aught of my cousin Halpan, or the other men that went to seek Maelchon's cattle?"

"We met Partalan and Canand on our way," Veylin told her.  "They had been set upon and lost their horses, but slew their attackers.  Canand is wounded, not gravely, but as soon as you can spare a man, someone should take a horse to fetch him."

"I will go, lady," Leod offered stoutly, "if the Dwarves will guard you in my place."

A child entrusted with his first steel-bitted axe would have been as good a defender, or better, but Veylin only said, "Bersi, will you keep watch here with Fram and Oski?"

"Certainly," said the coppersmith, who was fond of Saelon's ale, "if there is no battle to be had.  We left Partalan and the cowherd by the cairn, Leod."

The lad nodded.  "I know the place."

"You will be easy, lady," the Ranger asked Rian, brows knit, as Leod laid aside his makeshift weapon and loped towards the byre-cave, "with these folk?"

The lass's smile was a pretty thing to see.  "Oh, yes.  Master Veylin and his companions are old friends, who have seen us through many a trial.  Did Dírmaen not tell you of them?"

Perhaps he had: though that might not have been the best recommendation.  Faelnoth's "A little" was as discreet as his passing over the gravity of Dírmaen's wounds before the girl.  Yet Veylin found Rian's confidence uncommonly affecting, so that he rode towards Maelchon's, Thyrnir jogging by the pony's flank, with a heart alloyed of gratification and disquiet.  If only he could be sure he had already heard the worst.  The Ranger, who kept his roan to the shorter beast's pace, may have passed over much that was grievous, and how could he ask him to speak of the women, especially if they had been dishonored?

As they fell in along the little river between the cliffs, Veylin gazed up at the bluff on the left and spotted Nordri and two others, staring down at them.  He gave a short shout of reassurance and flourished his spear in all's-well, pointing it upriver to indicate they should cross at the upper ford.  Nordri's axe flashed in acknowledgement, catching the low rays of the sun.

"How many of you are there?" the Ranger asked, scanning both bluffs for more.

Worry notwithstanding, Veylin's lips quirked in a smile.  "Enough to keep watch here and carry the battle to our foes.  You?"

Faelnoth looked down on him from his horse.  He had a blunt face, its nakedness nipped by frost, deeply worn by recent labor or privation.  "I am glad," he confessed.  "With Dírmaen fallen, there are only two of us.  We cannot leave these people unguarded, and even if we could gather them all in one place, it would be foolhardy for one to seek a few men astray in a country strange to him, as night comes on . . . even were some of the outlaws not folk of Angmar.  Do you know this country well?"

Angmar: there was an ill name.  "Much of it."  What was it Hanadan had said, of the Men's search for Fokel?  Partalan had gone north, and there they had found him.  The pastures southward were Gaernath's portion; Veylin had been that way but once, with only a few of his companions.  Yet Halpan and Maelchon, who were most wanted, were to go to the oakwood, and because of their own need for timber, that was familiar ground.  "Nor will the dark trouble us."  Even if the clouds broke, there would be no moon--a black night indeed.  Canting his head to meet the Man's eye, he asked, "Is Dírmaen very bad?"

"We could not have made our way across these trackless mountains but for Dírmaen.  There was no trail to follow," Faelnoth recounted, voice gravely low.  "Wind and fresh snow had erased it, but before we came far down this stream he marked tracks he swore belonged to no horse of this place.  The spoor led us to the little wood of oaks."

To which Halpan and Maelchon had ridden.  "What did you find there?"  Did this Man dote on the sound of his own voice, or seek to make Dírmaen's fall less discreditable by harping upon what was praiseworthy?

"The scent of roasting beef and three ragged men lounging about the fire, certain they would soon have bread and ale besides.  We had a scuffle among the trees: my man led me a fox's chase afoot, so I did not see how Dírmaen and Randir fared.  I heard the clash of swords and pounding of hooves, and followed after them as soon as I had done, but came too late.  Dírmaen took a thrust in the first skirmish and had already lost much blood before he slew the outlaw chief here, at the cost of another wound.  He collapsed, Randir says, into the Lady Saelon's arms."

Veylin sniffed.  Why the Men of the Star scorned to wear mail, he did not know.  Did Dírmaen hope to win Saelon's favor through such gallantry, or soften her heart with pity for the injuries he had incurred?  Foolish Man.  Saelon did not condescend to pity, as Veylin could attest, having suffered her tender mercies.

As they mounted to Maelchon's yard, he looked sharply about.  The hurdle-walled folds were new since he had paused here on his way to the Havens; the one nearest the house--which appeared unscathed--held five horses, one Dírmaen's stolid brown.  Another grey-cloaked Man rose from the bench beside the door, staring at him and Thyrnir despite Faelnoth's raised hand of reassurance.

Four Men lay sprawled on the dungheap in the indignity of death, the head of one bludgeoned beyond recognition.  The savage fury that bespoke made his beard bristle.

The two Rangers spoke together, low-voiced, while he dismounted at the stone in the dooryard.  Thyrnir took the beast in hand, tying it to the young rowan as Veylin stumped to the threshold.  The second Ranger started forward, as though he would forestall him, but either Veylin's glare or Faelnoth's hand on his fellow's sleeve halted him.

He knocked briskly.

"Enter."

The voice was Saelon's, but spent, weary as he had rarely heard it in all these years of trial.  With a strange quaver of apprehension, he lifted the latch and pushed open the door--sound, untouched by violence, still perfectly silent on the pintles Grani had carved.

Blood.  With an oath, Veylin clutched the spearshaft in his hand, hardly able to tear his eyes from the clotted pools of gore beside the hearth.  The place had been defiled.

"Veylin!"  Saelon's exclamation of surprise drew his gaze to her, and now his grip grew so tight his knuckles gave the groan he could not utter.  She sat up a little straighter beside Dírmaen's blanket-swathed form, right arm cherished at her breast as though broken.  "How--?"

Though stained and stiff with blood--so much could not be her own--her threadbare old gown appeared whole; her face and the unguarded slimness of her throat had been marked by hands harsher than Rekk's.  "Hanadan came to us."

Ill-used she had been . . . yet her temper was still true.  "Hanadan?"  The breath of her sigh was as vexed as relieved.  "Whatever was he . . . .  I did not send him," she said, and there was no shame in her gaze, only the ashy grey of burnt-out anger.  "I did not know you had returned."

"No matter," Veylin assured her.  "We are here now.  Tell me how we can be of service."

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Notes

**Talus** : rock debris, especially at the base of a cliff.

**"horns of his saddle"** : for greater security, on account of his game leg, I envision Veylin using something like a [Roman cavalryman's saddle](http://www.caerleon.net/history/army/saddle.jpg), which had two angled horns in place of the cantle and another two in front.

**Steel-bitted** : a tool's cutting edge is its bit; tools and weapons, including swords, were usually low-carbon iron (malleable, so it would bend rather than break) with high-carbon steel (brittle, giving a hard, sharp edge) on the business end.


	14. Watch Oer Mans Mortality

_The day has been_  
_When I could never pass this road but she_  
_Who lived within these walls, when I appeared,_  
_A daughter's welcome gave to me, and I loved her_  
_As my own child.  Oh, Sir, the good die first,_  
_And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust  
_ _Burn to the socket._

\--William Wordsworth, "The Ruined Cottage"

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Thyrnir sat on the high bench beside the door of the house he had built, his naked axe on his lap, and wished he could not hear the piercing keen of grief through the stone of the wall.  Or that the walls had kept out--

No.  The fault was not in Nordri's walls, nor in the door he had made, laboriously fashioned from wood seasoned iron-hard by the awful sea.  It hung square and snug in its frame, planks unmarred by ram or axe, bar unbroken.  These folk, these heedless, harmless, hospitable folk, who freely gave--though so poor--whatever could be decently asked, had left it open to all comers.

And been punished for their ready welcome.  The little he had seen, carrying water and peats in for Saelon while his uncle sat watch with a look he had not seen since they had avenged themselves against the fiends, had been too much.  Gouts of blood, soaking into earth and stone; the dark-haired serving woman, hunched as with pain, staring into the steaming pot she tended with eyes as blank as a skull's; the dreadful lamentation shut in the inner chamber . . . .

What horrors were concealed there?  The babe dead, the Ranger had said.  Thyrð and Ingi had taken the remaining children to the hall, the younger two perched on Veylin's pony and Ros clutching Ingi's horny hand, all mute as birds beneath a hawk's shadow.  But what of Fransag's mother, frail and faded as last autumn's leaves, and the goodwife herself?  How much worse must they be than Saelon and Tearlag, for even Men to shut the door of decent secrecy upon them?

This was why Dwarves dwelt behind locked doors; this was why they went warily, keeping what was dear to them close and guarded, even where Orcs did not prowl.  On his first journeys beyond the mansion, Thyrnir had seen that Men could be mean, cruel to those they found outlandish, but he had not known they would prey even upon their own kind.  No Khazâd would treat another so.  They were ravening beasts, savaging peaceable folk to sate their lusts--

"Thyrnir."

So deep was he in dark thoughts that the voice startled him, and he turned a forbidding face to the door.

Yet Saelon seemed not to notice.  "Would you fetch more water?"

Veylin had been wrong when he described her as steel.  Only granite could bear the blows she took without bending or shattering.  Her marred face was set in endurance and she alone among those who had suffered still attended to the work at hand.  There were times when his uncle's regard for this woman of Men struck him as unnatural, as wild a freak as his flouting of the sea's menace . . . but this was not one of them.

"Is the need urgent, or can it wait until Veylin returns?"  Thyrnir nodded towards the council of war across the yard, where his uncles and Nordri debated guards and scouts, direction and numbers with the two Rangers.  "I would not leave you unguarded."

Saelon sighed and leaned against the jamb of the door, resting her head on the smooth-planed oak.  "No, it is not urgent.  I only wish to set the blood-soaked clothes to soak, and sluice the floor clean, so the place is not such a shambles."

"Sluice the--" Thyrnir stared at her.  "Whose blood is it?"

"Theirs," she answered, in a voice that would have been hard if it were not so weary.  "The two that we slew."

"That you slew?"  This he had not heard.

"What," Saelon asked, with a shade of her habitual wryness, "have the Rangers claimed credit for all?"

Thyrnir suddenly recalled the gap in the hearth curb, beside one patch of gore.  "Not claimed."

"Nor given, neither."  Saelon's voice was dry, resigned.  "Men do not like to think their women capable of such deeds."

"Whyever not?"  Though his mother had never raised a weapon in wrath--he devoutly prayed she need never do so--it was a comfort, especially seeing this violation, to know she wielded a cunning axe.  Had she not given him his first lessons in the art, playing the goblin who pounced from behind the door?

Saelon gazed on him, a speculative look in her eye.  "I have a very great curiosity about your women, you know," she murmured.  "I should dearly love to meet one."

Thyrnir hoped his blush of shame did not show in the deepening dusk: his indiscretion, the first night they met, had betrayed the existence of their women to her.  Anxious to make his amends for their attack on her, he had escorted her through the darkness made fearful by the fiend that slew his father, and answered when she asked how Veylin and Rekk were both his uncles if they were not brothers.  At least she did not suspect Auð.  "Why waste the effort, Lady?" he hastened to return to their first topic, unsettled by so much candor.  "You will all be in the hall as soon as men can be spared to escort you."

She shook her head.  "No.  Dírmaen cannot be safely moved for a day, perhaps two.  I do not think Fransag will leave, either."

"Why?"  So peculiar these women were, to remain where they had been abused when greater security was near at hand!

Rubbing her swollen arm and wrist, Saelon considered.  "Because she slew her fear when she killed that pig," she finally hazarded, weariness settling upon her again.  "Because this is her place.  Do you not know how much she loves this house?"

He had not been here enough to see more than Fransag's first delight, yet the thought that she valued a thing he had helped create enough to hold fast in the face of such torment made him feel quite strange, proud of his work and taken aback by its power.  "Then you must not wash the blood into the earth!  How could anyone be easy knowing something of their foe remained beneath their feet, exerting who knows what malign influence?  Wait until the others return from their search of your cliff and the tower hill, and I will get some to help me dig it out, so no trace remains, and we will pave the floor afresh.  Do you know where Maelchon keeps his spade?"

"No.  But I will ask Tearlag."  Saelon set a hand on his shoulder, the nailbeds dark with blood.  "Thank you."

Not all Men were beasts.  Thyrnir wondered if he should move his helm aside and invite her to sit--surely she stood here so long to escape the reek of death within--when a low, distant drumming came to his ear.  The beat of hooves upon the earth . . . a horse . . . coming at a gallop from the cliffs.  Who--?  The Rangers, like Saelon, had lifted their heads and were staring towards the track.

When the rider crested the bank, Saelon's breath went from her in a great gust and she stepped forward, waving her unwounded arm.  "Gaernath!"

Gaernath; yes.  He had not recognized the lad at first, the fine red of his hair dulled by twilight.  "Saelon!"  There was no less relief in the young Man's voice, yet he looked sharply about and fixed his stare on the tall Rangers, who had drawn nearer, their hands on their swords.  "Who is that?  Speak!" he challenged, though his only arms were a cased bow and the knife at his belt.

"They are Rangers of the North," Saelon said, brusque with impatience.  "Come to our aid, no less than Veylin and his folk.  Where have you been?  Were you set upon by reivers?  Have you seen Halpan or Maelchon, or Fokel?"

"No--what is this about reivers?"  Gaernath dropped from his mount and strode towards them.  "Nyr said you had been attacked!"

"I am a little battered," Saelon passed over her own injuries, and perhaps a Man's feeble night-eyes would not see how much.  "But the women here suffered more.  You saw no sign of reivers?  What kept you so long, then?"

The Man would need more beard than that fringe to conceal the guilt that alloyed his distress.  "Oh, aunt . . . ."  The hand he laid hesitantly on her shoulder and drew down her arm seemed as much for his reassurance as hers--but he was still very young.  "Where is your cloak?" he exclaimed.  "Come, let us go inside, where you will be out of the chill."

What had he been doing that could not be told?  Or was he merely trying to shield his stripling pride from public reproof?

"No."  Saelon would not be moved, by hand or worried words.  "I am well where I am.  You have not answered my questions.  Where have you been?"

"South, where I was sent!  Finean and I saw no one, until we came back to the cliff-top and a strange Dwarf brandished his axe at us."  Thyrnir marveled that Gaernath dared to sound so aggrieved.  He certainly would not have taken such a tone with an elder kinswoman, especially one of keen temper who had been ill-used.  "I had a bad moment," the lad confessed, showing a smile that invited affable remembrance of the past to Veylin, Rekk, himself--those who had been present at his ignoble first encounter with Dwarves, "until Nyr appeared and vouched for us with the fellow.  Vígir is his name."

"Did you ride all the way to Mount Rerir," Saelon sharply recalled him to her questions, "that you should return so late?"

"No.  A league beyond the Ram, and saw no cattle and nothing amiss, only the trace of a grand stag.  And since you said the other day that you would like a nice haunch of venison for Halpan's farewell feast--"

"Partalan and Canand were attacked while they rode in the north," she cut him off, "and Halpan and Maelchon have not returned.  Will you go out with these men--" her gesture encompassed Dwarves as well as Rangers "--as guide, to seek them, living or dead?  You are the only man trained in arms I have to send."

If the intent of her harsh words was to jar him into an awareness of his duty, it did not seem immediately successful.  "The only--?" Gaernath gaped, as if still not grasping how grave matters were.

"Hanadan ran all the way to Gunduzahar to fetch the Dwarves."

The comparison to a child was cruel: but Men often seemed insensible to subtler prompts, dull as the oxen they goaded along the road.  "Of course!  Let me go and fetch my spear," the lad said hastily, turning to Thyrnir's uncles and the Rangers, "and I will be with you."

"You have wasted enough time.  Take Dírmaen's," Saelon ordered.

"Dírmaen's?"

"Lady," the Ranger called Randir began in a warning tone.

The look she turned his way silenced him, and there was a note in her voice like the warning shrill of overwrought steel.  "It is not as if he will be needing it.  Why are you all still standing about here, talking?  Must I go myself?  I have dared worse things in the dark than a few skulking curs of the Witch-King!"

"So you have," Veylin agreed placidly, stepping forward, which was more than Thyrnir would have dared.  The woman looked as if she might snatch the spear from his hand, and use it on any who balked her.  "But who would tend the wounded, if you were to go?  None of us have your skill.  We are ready, but the Men may need some light to help them on their way.  Are there torches to hand they might use?"

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Saelon sank down beside Dírmaen, clenching her hands together to keep them from shaking: not from the cold of the night air, but impotent rage, howling like a wolf in her mind.  If she could savage those who had savaged them--

Her ferocity wrung her throbbing hand, which kept time with the beat in her head.  No; madness.  Her wits were astray, shaken by blows and the evil she had witnessed.  Even if they were not, her strength was spent, her right hand enfeebled by pain.  It was as well that she must not give Dírmaen meadowsweet until the danger of further bleeding was past, for she did not think she could resist taking some herself, and she must not, not until perhaps tomorrow.

Why had she been so angry with Gaernath?  How was he to know that aught was amiss here?  Perhaps it was as well that he had gone chasing after deer, else he might have been caught up in the fighting: injured, killed.  Had he brought down the stag?  She had not given him a chance to say.  If so, they would have something to feed all these men.  They must feed them, after their efforts; but with Maelchon's cattle lost, a stirk would be dear.

A haunch for Halpan's farewell feast . . . .  Pray that it would not be for his burying.

Now the tears came, which she had been too occupied to shed before.  She spread her left hand across her bruise-tender face to muffle the sobs she could not contain, for Fransag's weeping had finally quieted, and Tearlag was slumped in the corner as though asleep, the greatest kindness any could have given the poor woman.  Dírmaen she did not fear to wake, for he was deep, drowned as much by exhaustion, she judged, as by the loss of blood.

Yet he lay pale and still as death, save for the slight but steady rise and fall of his breast beneath the layers of blankets that preserved what warmth he retained.

What would have happened if he had not--

Mind shying from the prospect, Saelon rose and dipped a cup of the honeyed water she had set to keep warm by the fire and drank it down.  She ought to eat something, but the meal kist had been carried away by the wounded horse when it bolted and her stomach rebelled when she regarded the fish that remained among the rafters.  Not cuddies; no.  Ought she to ask Thyrnir to go to the hall to fetch something?  Fransag, too, would benefit from a bannock and a posset, and both Veylin and Thyrnir must be hungry after their march . . . .

How had Hanadan known where to find them?  At least Veylin had been there.  So many Dwarves.  How was she to repay them for this?

She wanted to crawl into her quiet little cave like a wounded beast into its den and wish this all away; wake to find it no more than a nightmare.  Weary; so weary . . . unnaturally weary.  Sitting down on the bench, she leaned her head back against the stone of the wall.  She must not sleep, but she must close her eyes on this still-awful scene, at least for a little.  Just a little . . . 

More than a little, for the crash of the door against its stop did not register until the hulking man was in the room.  Saelon woke on her feet, heart leaping desperately in her breast, as Tearlag screamed--

"Where is Fransag?" the wild-maned man demanded.  "The children?"

Maelchon: muddy, disheveled, face distorted by dread.  Mute with the terror that still poured through her veins, Saelon pointed, hand shaking, towards the ben.

"Fransag!"

The woman who opened the door to him gave him pause--clothes torn, bespattered with blood, face slobbered--but Fransag hurled herself into his arms, weeping afresh, and after a moment he folded around her, clutching her close.

Still trembling from the fright of Maelchon's abrupt entrance, Saelon went to Tearlag, who stared and panted like a harried ewe.  "Shh," she soothed, taking the serving woman in her arms.  "It is only your master.  No ill can come now: Master Veylin sits by the door with a _raug_ -spear, and Thyrnir beside."  Tearlag did not seem much comforted by such protectors; yet she might reassure herself.  If Maelchon was well--she saw no blood about him--surely Halpan could not be harmed; not grievously harmed.  She longed to ask . . . but how could anyone with a heart break in on such a reunion?

When Tearlag's breath had grown quiet again, Saelon tucked the woman's patched cloak close about her listless form before going to the door, which someone had drawn shut.  As she set her hand upon the latch, she heard low voices without: Veylin's unmistakable rumble, a stony shore beneath the wave; the measured reply of one of the Rangers; and Halpan's familiar note, though flat, all cheerfulness beaten out.

She opened the door and slipped out to join them.

Someone had built a pair of fires in the yard, far enough from the door to give ample warning of approaching foes.  "Halpan?  You are well?"

Turning towards her threw his face into stark shadow, but she heard the sharp draw of his breath.  "I ought to be asking that of you," he murmured.  "Forgive me: four of the villains pursued us, and I could think of nothing better than to take to the hills."

He might have shaken them quickly in country he knew so well, on high-bred Auril, but Maelchon's Donnan was dogged rather than fleet, and the husbandman no lightweight.  "The important thing is that you preserved your lives."  Saelon did not know what she--what they all--would have done if the two men had been lost, and reached out to take her cousin's hand.

As left clasped left, he set two fingers of his right beneath her chin, angling her face towards the fire.  "Has this been requited with gold?"

A poor attempt to make light of the abuse she had suffered, but an attempt nonetheless.  Saelon was glad for it, though she could not match it.  "No.  He had nothing I desired, except his heart's blood."

"Was that the one whose arm was cut?" Veylin asked matter-of-factly, tamping his strong-smelling weed into his pipe.

"Yes.  That is a good blade you traded me."

His whiskers, warmly russet as flame in the firelight, twitched, and his grunt had satisfaction in it.  "I am glad it has served you so well."

"Here, Lady," the archer-Ranger said, drawing off his cloak and settling it about her shoulders.  "How are the folk within?"

It was too long, dragging in the mud before the door; but Saelon stroked the napped woolen gratefully, glad for the warmth.  The man--Randir, was it?--had been much abashed to find he had spoken to the Lady of Srathen Brethil in the heat of battle as if she were no more than a serving wench.  "I think Fransag will rally, now that Maelchon has returned: her woe is grief more than any hurt.  She has lost Nannag, her babe, and her mother, Gràinne . . . is frail, ill able to endure such shocks."  No need to tell them how outrageously the old woman had been insulted; she must preserve what honor any of them could keep after their time in such depraved hands.  "Tearlag . . . ."  She shook her head.  "Halpan, will you take her to the hall and entrust her to Muirne's care?  And have someone bring my kist of simples, and some food?  Milk and ale, as well: we would all be better for a posset."

"You should come to the hall," Halpan said.

"Would you kill Dírmaen?" she countered, as bluntly.

"How does he?" Randir asked quietly, perhaps as earnest to avoid an argument as to know.

Saelon raised her hand to her head.  Her wits were astray indeed, to speak so brusquely before Dírmaen's comrade.  "Your pardon: he is sleeping quietly and not in present danger.  Yet if he is moved, he may bleed again.  It is ill that he should be so weakened, with the risk of fever from his wounds."

"I would be honored to keep guard over you here, Lady."

Veylin's cough did not come from the pungent smoke he was making, but Saelon cast a glance his way and he remained watchfully silent.  "Are there many more of the foul creatures abroad?" she asked.

The Ranger looked at Veylin.  "Two or three, perhaps.  Now that your men are here to guard you, we will go out as soon as it is light and track them down."

"You would not mind company, I hope," the dwarf-lord rumbled, deep-set eyes glinting like the gems he loved.  "We would assure ourselves that no brigands lurk about our doorstep."

"I will let you men settle such matters between you."  Dwarves or Dúnedain, Saelon did not care who slew those that were left, so long as they were slain.  "How we are to thank you for your aid, I do not know."

Veylin paffed.  "For what?  A brisk march with ale at the end?"

"Such is our duty, Lady!" Randir dismissed as readily.

Halpan laid a hand on Saelon's shoulder.  "Go and tend those who need you," he told her, and she knew she looked ill from the grave concern in his eyes.  "Rian and I will see that our guests want nothing."

"Thank you," she sighed.  Taking off the cloak, she handed it back to the Ranger.  He would need it more than she would, within the house.  "Thank you all."

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Notes

**Shambles** : originally, a slaughterhouse or meat market.

**The Ram** : from Sindarin, "wall"; the great dyke a league south of the tower hill.

**Meadowsweet** (also queen of the meadow; _Filipendula ulmaria_ ): medicinal herb used to treat fever and pain; this, not willow, was the original source of salicylic acid for aspirin.  Salicylic acid is a blood-thinner as well as an anti-inflammatory, which is why neither Dírmaen nor Saelon--even minor traumatic brain injuries increase the risk of bleeding in the brain--should take it just now.

**Cuddies** (also saithe, _Pollachius virens_ ): fish related to pollack and cod, easily caught with a handline from rocky shores.

**Posset** : a hot, rich drink for those who have been chilled or invalids, made of sweetened milk or cream curdled with ale or wine.


	15. Old Wives' Tales

_Doubt grows with knowledge._

\--Johann Wolfgang van Goethe, _Proverbs in Prose_

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"Would you like a little more?" Sút asked, as the boy scoured the last traces of gravy from the bowl's glazed curve with what was left of his bread.

"Yes, please!"  Hanadan flashed them a broad, avid smile.  "It is very good.  My aunt makes nothing like it."

Auð considered how swiftly the first portion had vanished, then cut him another wedge of ham pie nearly as large.  He had been equally voracious at breakfast, downing a great stack of muffins with disarmingly candid delight at their novelty.  Taking his bowl, she slid in the pie and passed it back to him.  Although she could not see those scrawny wrists without thinking he had been starved, she was beginning to wonder how much feeding it took to raise a Man to his full height.  Maybe it was as well that Bersa had not taken her wager.

"I have heard that the Lady Saelon keeps a fine table," she observed.  "But I do not understand: she is your aunt, and Halpan is your uncle?"  Auð was sure Rekk had said Halpan was Saelon's father's younger brother's second son.  Surely she could not also be the sister of this child's mother!

"Thank you," Hanadan said, cutting the crust with his spoon.  "Saelon isn't my aunt, really," he confessed, with a child's shameless indiscretion.  "I cannot call her mother, though, because Nana did not want her to foster me."

Sút stared at him with perturbed fascination, sable brows knit at the casual falsity.  "Who is Nana?"

Auð was surprised that her friend had returned to the hall to keep them company.  Hlin had not ventured out since the boy arrived, and the delf seemed empty with so many of the men abroad, after the crowded bustle of their arrival.  At least Veylin had sent Haki and Gamal back last night with the news that they had missed what fighting there was, and their neighbors had taken less hurt than feared.  Most of the brigands were slain, and they would return when all had been brought to account, but Halpan or Gaernath would come to retrieve Hanadan.  With only three leagues between them, she had expected the Man before now.  Had something unforeseen occurred?

The boy's answer was unclear at first, not merely because his mouth was full.  " _Naneth_.  My mother."

As bewildered as Sút, Auð said, "Foster you?  What is that?"  She had never heard the word before.  How could a child call anyone mother who was not?

Hanadan regarded her curiously as he chewed.  "When you live with a noble who treats you as his son.  It is a common thing, for heroes.  My cousin Halmir, who will be lord of Srathen Brethil, is fostered to a lord of the Rangers."

"Do you mean prenticed?"

He shrugged and shoveled more ham in his mouth.

No; it could not be the same thing.  No one would part with so young a child.  His mother had not desired it.  "Do you not live all together at White Cliffs?"

Reaching for his mug, he shook his head.

At breakfast, Auð had learnt that his father and eldest brother were dead, slain by the same fiends that had left her own sons fatherless.  Was he . . . ?  "You do not live with your mother?"  Did not, he had said of her.

He shook his head again.  "Nana was sick," he said, without the least reserve, "so she went home to her Nana.  Handin went too, to take care of her and our sisters.  I stayed with Halpan, to keep my father's place."

Sick; something else Auð did not clearly understand.  Some affliction of Men, that enfeebled them.  That a woman who had lost her husband might seek security among her own kin was not strange; and it was praiseworthy that a son, though of tender years, should wish to hold fast to his patrimony.  Yet that Men would not choose one or the other, instead allowing their contrary impulses to divide the family . . . .  That was wrong.  There had been selfishness somewhere.  But the blame could not be laid on this brave young creature who found delight in the simplest things: crockery, coal; water from a tap; risen bread.

How was it that they were marvels to him?  Could anyone be so poor?

"Sisters," Sút muttered, plainly wondering what a girl-child might be like.  "You are blessed with more than one?"

"Three," Hanadan said, screwing his face up as if displeased and reaching for another slice of bread.  "The same as Guaire."

"Three!  And you had two brothers?"

He nodded and stuffed his mouth.

Auð answered Sút's disbelieving stare with a sign for discussion later.  She had been amazed--skeptically so--by reports that the farmer Maelchon had seven children, but taken it as a freak, like that gem-making Elf who had seven sons.  Were all Men so prolific?  She was trying to imagine bearing and raising half a dozen children when Fram strode into the hall, helm under his arm.  His step faltered when he saw the three of them together at the table, but his surprise was swiftly concealed and he turned their way.

She rose and went to meet him.  "What news?  Is all still well?"

"With us, very well," Bersi's prentice assured her.  "The Men have suffered no new calamity; are lucky," he rumbled, frowning at Sút, who continued to converse with the man-child, "to have fared no worse, careless as they are.  Bersi is bringing Halpan to the front door now.  If you do not wish to meet the Man, you should withdraw."

Was a prentice presuming to tell her how to attend to her own security?  "I have met Halpan twice before, when he was welcomed in this hall.  Has something changed to make him less trustworthy?  If so, why will he be allowed to enter?"

"I did not say he was less trustworthy," Fram grumbled, looking disgruntled.  "I was only tasked with bringing you word of his arrival."

Then he ought to confine his words to that.  Yet should he to be faulted for liking Men less than his master?  "The warning is welcome," she conceded.  Sút would certainly appreciate it.  "How many of our men are returning with Bersi?"  She was willing to stay to greet Halpan and give her charge back into his kin's keeping, but she would be easier if their guest were well escorted.

"Four: Grani, with Aðal and his friend, and the haughty Longbeard as well."

None of her own menfolk, though Sút would welcome Aðal, the stonecarver being the nearest to kin she had here.  "What delays the others?"

"The Men of the Star say two of the brigands may have escaped them.  Rekk has taken some to join the hunt; Nordri oversees the cleansing of Maelchon's house; and Veylin has taken charge until Halpan returns."

"The cleansing of Maelchon's house?"  Auð stared at him, a chill touching her heart.  That was not the word for the plying of broom or mop, and bespoke defilement rather than dirt.  And why must her brother do the duty of the masterful Lady?

"That was Thyrnir's idea," Fram said.  "Two of the brigands were slain within, yet the Men intended to remain in the place, with their enemy's blood in the dirt of their floor."

Enemies inside one's home!  Auð's beard bristled at the very thought.  "I am sure you are all hungry," she turned the subject.  Her questions must wait until Veylin and her sons came home; she would get better answers then.  "Will you step into the kitchen and ask Bersa to bring out a second round of dinner?  I will tell Sút of our guest."

"Girls are silly," Hanadan was declaring with an authority quite unbefitting his age as she came back to the table.  "Nothing but pests.  Is it true that there are no girl Dwarves?"

Sút's face closed and she drew back from the table and the boy, offended by his opinions or his forwardness.  Or both.  "Why should you think so?"

"You all have beards," he said blithely.  "Gaernath says so.  Girls don't have beards."

"You don't have a beard."

The child jutted out his naked chin with pride.  "I am high-born Dúnedain, with the blood of Elves in my veins.  I will not grow a beard until I am very old.  Elves grow beards when they are very old--did you know that?  My aunt says Círdan's goes down to here."

So much queerness in one day; Auð did not know how Sút bore it.  Setting a hand on the boy's shoulder, she caught her friend's eye.  "Your uncle has come to fetch you, Hanadan.  He should be at the door now."

A great smile flashed across the child's open face and he leapt up from the bench--then caught himself.  "May I go to meet him, Master Auð?"

_You will remain here?_ Sút signed curtly.

"Yes," she said, to both of them.

So swift that boy was, flying across the hall on those long legs!  "You are staying?" Auð asked her friend, when she also watched him go.

Sút snorted and rose.  "This Man cannot be very perilous if one as prudent as you will meet him.  Besides," she confessed, a rascally glimmer in her eye, "I have a curiosity to see one of these bald-faced creatures full-grown."

Hanadan was tugging at the heavy hall door--blackened steel chased with the warmth of copper; the child might be dwarf-high, but he was not strong--when it abruptly swung inwards, almost knocking him down.  Halting the great panel with one hand as he came through, Bersi smiled.  "Ho there, youngster!  Are you so eager to leave?"

"Uncle!" the boy cried, and flung himself, arms wide, at the towering Man beside the coppersmith.  Halpan stooped to catch him, long arms wrapping around the child's slender shoulders as his nephew buried his face against his breast and hugged him tight about the waist.

The silence of the two kinsmen as they held fast to each other touched Auð more deeply than she expected.  No; the child was not starved.  Poor in goods they might be, but not in affection.

"Hanadan," the elder eventually murmured, loosing his embrace enough to peer into the boy's face, "you were very foolhardy to come here as you did.  Partalan and Canand were attacked by reivers not far from the way you must have taken.  And what would you have done if the Dwarves were still at their home across the mountains?"

"I did not know where to find you," the child muttered low, hiding his face in his uncle's moss-green tunic.  "Or Partalan, or Gaernath."

"But you knew where to find us?" Bersi rumbled, mildly severe.

"Sorta," Hanadan confessed, meeker still.  Perhaps he found the armor daunting; his uncle wore none.

"How?"

"No one would tell me where you lived."  The boy was not too fearful to complain.  "So I tracked them when they came to see you.  Dírmaen taught me.  He can track anything!  I will be a Ranger like him when I am old enough!"

There was pride as well as exasperation in his uncle's face, and Bersi snorted.  "A proper Man of the Star you will make, creeping up on friends by stealth as though they were foes.  This time," he allowed, with a pointed finger and a bit of a growl, "we will pardon you, for you came in need and not for amusement, but do not forget: Dwarves do not welcome uninvited guests!"

The grey eyes that had risen with defiance fell again.  "I will remember," Hanadan promised.

"What else must you say?" Halpan prompted sternly.

"I am sorry, Master Bersi."

The coppersmith chuffed, knowing eyes amused.  He had raised sons.  "Do not make it worse with dishonesty.  You are not sorry: not that you hunted us out, nor that you found aid for your kin.  Nor should you be.  It was a brave deed.  So it would be better if you thanked your hosts for the trouble you have given them."

Hanadan stared at him for a moment, head to one side, then pushed away from his uncle and faced her.  "Thank you, Master Auð," he said gravely.  "I _am_ sorry if I have been a bother."

She bowed.  "No more than my kin have sometimes been to yours, I am sure.  I am pleased to have met you."  She was, truly.  So much she had learned from his unguarded innocence; more of Men in one day than the previous century and a half had taught her.

"I--all my folk--cannot thank you enough," Halpan added, and his bow was gratifyingly deep.  "For your promptness in coming to our aid as well as your care of my nephew.  Two stirks I have brought in token of our gratitude, one from our Lady and one from Maelchon.  May the beef amply recruit the strength you have spent on our behalf!"

Now that was handsome; very handsome indeed.  Auð had not expected repayment, not given the quantity of opal Veylin had gained by the Lady's intelligence.  "Our thoughts will be with you when we feast on it," she assured him, bowing low in return.  Fresh beef at the beginning of Súlimë!  Steaks for breakfast; a great roast for dinner; proper gravy, rich and brown . . . .

"Two?"  Bersi, who had removed his helm and run a hand through his flattened hair, looked quizzically up at the Man.  "You brought three beeves."

"Yes," Halpan agreed, and now his bald face was nakedly embarrassed.  "Two are our gift, yet the Lady hopes you will like to buy the third."

Auð frowned at him.  This was strange practice.  "Certainly we will buy, if she wishes to sell."  Yet they could not value the meat as much as if the gift had not been given.  Even with nearly thirty mouths to feed, there would be plenty to hang and the excess would have to be salted.  Had they a pressing need for money?  Was someone held ransom, or did the Men of the Star require payment for their aid?  "What price do you ask?"  She would buy it herself, and get her price from Bersa later.  To stand and watch the fat cook wring this abashed young Man for an extra farthing would be intolerable.

"Six pennies is usual," he said, "but the beasts are lean at this season.  Shall we say five?"

Prut, who would not let anyone forget that he was descended from the Eldest, for all that he was only one of Bersi's pick-men, paffed.  "That sorry bag of bones?  The hide and the glue one would get from its bones are worth more than the meat.  Thrippence would be kindness!"

Auð fixed him with a withering glare.  _And if I choose to be kind, what business is it of yours?_   "I have not seen the beast," she confessed, jaw tight under the jut of her beard.  "Bersi, what do you reckon it is worth?"  She had meant to ask him privately, through _iglishmêk_ , until this fool of a Longbeard thrust in.

Bersi ended his own silent admonition to the newcomer by closing his fist in finality.  "They are nowhere near so bad," he said stoutly.  "You did not look at them properly, Prut.  That price would be just for hill beasts, which are sad wrecks so late in winter, but the grazing is better here by the sea.  They carry good horn, too.  I cannot say less than four."

"Will you take four pennies?" Auð asked Halpan, expecting him to ask for the half and willing to give it to him.

"As I have nowhere else to go," the Man said with a strained smile, "yes, I will.  I understand, Master Auð, that you sell coarse linen at four ells to the pence.  The Lady Saelon has need of such.  It may be as coarse as you like," he told her.  "She would like four ells; or, if coarser is cheaper, a penny's worth."

Auð believed his nephew could have bargained more shrewdly than this.  The Lady would have done better to come herself and bring some of her niece's woolen, as they had discussed in the autumn.  "I have some that would be cheaper, but it is thin stuff.  What does she need it for?"

"To dress wounds," he said.

Ah; that explained why she had not come.  "I am sorry you have such a need.  Were many of your folk wounded?"

"Not many, but two gravely."

"The Lady is a skillful healer, I know.  Sit," Auð invited, " and take some dinner while I fetch the linen.  It is only a ham pie, but your nephew likes it very much."

As she headed for her workshop, Sút, who had stood far back to avoid formal acquaintance, fell in beside her.  Once they had left the hall, she murmured, "I did not think they were that tall."

Whiskers twitching, Auð remembered her first sight of Men.  She had always admired Sút's composure.  "Halpan is Dúnedain, from the line of their kings.  I understand they are loftier than the common sort."

"Why?"

Auð shrugged.  "I do not know.  Perhaps it is the elf-blood they are so proud of."  That was another thing she could not comprehend: that any would boast of being mongrel.  How could Men give their loyalty to rulers who had divided hearts?  Or was it one of those alloys that produced a metal of greater utility, as when soft copper and tin were mingled to make hard bronze?  "Yet their men also overtop the women.  That I have seen."

Sút stared.  "Truly?"

"The Lady is almost a span lower than her cousin."  Some Dwarves were nearly so different in height, but it followed no pattern save perhaps that of prosperity and poverty.  Did Men starve their girls, so they might dominate them?  It seemed inconceivable, but no more so than not teaching them the use of arms.

That would be why Veylin had wasted no time in riding to the Lady's aid.  To be attacked, and unable to defend oneself creditably--  The mere thought was enough to make one's flesh creep.  Would this put an end to Saelon's reckless audacity?  Unless she truly were mad, it must put some dent in her daring; and Fram had spoken of the Men of the Star.  What were they doing at White Cliffs, if not defending the people there?  Auð longed for her brother's return, so she could hear how he thought these things would effect their plans and hopes for Gunduzahar.  The Lady and her Men were not of great importance to their work here; supplied them with little that could not brought from elsewhere . . . yet there was more than mere utility between them.

Could the peculiar friendship between her brother and Saelon endure if the woman of Men grew cautious?  She did not know.  There was nothing to compare.  But surely it must be more difficult for the Lady to maintain the balance of obligation and generosity between them if her independence were constrained.

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Notes

**Muffins** : Americans, picture "English muffins," not a cupcake-like sweetbread.

**_Naneth_** : Sindarin, "mother."

**Farthing** : a quarter of a penny.

**The Eldest** : Durin, the Father of the Longbeards.

**Thrippence** : three pence.


	16. Sitting Idly By

_. . . it is not to be supposed that the refinement and alertness of the faculties of observation can be sharpened to an exceptional degree without having one's susceptibility to pain sharpened as well._

\--Thomas Mann, _Question and Answer_

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"Come, Master," Saelon's niece pressed, "will you not have more of the lamb?"

Veylin shook his head and took up his cup.  "Thank you, but no.  It is not," he added, with determined heartiness, seeing something like distress on Rian's smooth young face, "that it is not good--it is the best lamb I have had in many a year--but my appetite cannot match your generosity."

"Mine can," Rekk assured her, holding out his plate.  "Tramping the countryside in search of brigands is hungry work.  Is there any of the shoulder left?"

"A trifle.  Or would you rather have venison?"

"Might I have both?"

"Of course!"

The lass had made a fine thing of the venison as well, though she had not mastered Saelon's juniper-berry sauce.  Even if she had, however, Veylin would have eaten little, his stomach still clenched by what he had seen and what he conjectured.

He must be careful not to drink too much.  Drunkenness would mend nothing.

Looking beyond him, Rian asked, "Will you take another slice or two, Master Nordri?"  How hard the lass was working, trying to do her aunt's duty as hostess.  The anxiety on her face: did she fear to disappoint, or was it lingering fright?

Smiling, the mason wiped his rusty whiskers.  "Two, if you would be so good."

Their appreciation seemed to settle her.  "Gaernath, please carve more for our guests."

And the lad doing the honors at the other end of the Men's trestle-set board.  Since he had provided the noble saddle and haunch, he had full right to apportion them . . . but if Gaernath took pride in his place, it did not show.  He was as jovial a host as Veylin a guest, mum unless spoken to and dour then.

A strange feast altogether, Rian and Gaernath the only Men sitting down with the nine Dwarves who remained.  A ceremony of obligation, rather than a celebration, in which the Edain apparently had no place, for they went about their work as best they could, short-handed, burdened by unease.  The Rangers were not here, either.  Saelon was tending the wounded at Maelchon's; Halpan ought to have reached Gunduzahar by now--Veylin prayed Hanadan had not troubled Auð too much.

So much trouble . . . and what had they accomplished?  Nothing.  He had roused and led out most of his followers in search of villains already slain; to witness their neighbors' shame.

Worse than nothing.

Most of his folk here about the board knew how to judge the Men's weaknesses, having seen them in dire plight before, but some of those who had already returned to the delf had grumbled and looked askance at him, ill-pleased by what proved to be over-hasty and profitless alarm.  They cared little for Saelon and her Men, seeing scant value in them, and this foray may have swayed the balance of their judgment.

It was probably better that they had gone, for Veylin himself hardly knew what to make of much that he saw.  Saelon's apparent indifference to physical insult and the smouldering fury beneath he knew of old; almost his only satisfaction was that he had put the steel of vengeance into her hand.  Yet how was he to understand Fransag?  The goodwife had emerged from seclusion that morning for the burying of her youngest, eyes scarlet with weeping, voice like a burr-stone: she sounded eerily like a Dwarf as she upbraided Nyr for shoddy workmanship . . . then forbade him to replace the gore-stained kerbstone or set it properly, lest she need such a weapon to hand again.  This was tenacity indeed; but deranged, beyond reason.

Maelchon stood beside her, one hand on the curve of her broad back, and protested that Nyr and Ingi, Thyrnir and Thyrð should not trouble themselves, that the pollution was of no account, did not require so much labor to remove.

Did the husbandman think they would charge him for work he had not solicited, adding to the debt that bound him to his sullied house?  Or was it simply the desire to be rid of all who were not kin at a time of mourning, to salvage what shreds remained of his family's privacy?

The Men's peculiar behavior deepened Veylin's gloomy uncertainty, feeding the growing sense that his actions had not only been unhelpful but perhaps even unwelcome.  What did he know of how Men saw fit to deal with such . . . ordinary evils, save that Dwarves scorned them as feckless?

Among Khazâd, no measure of thought, no labor, no expense, no sacrifice was too great to protect women and children, the heart-lode of their race.  They were never unguarded; only folk of proven good-will might pass so much as the outermost defenses of their homes.  On those exceptional occasions when malignance did penetrate a delf--Orc or drake, dragon or dark demon-shape from the deeps--it was abandoned like a shattered strongbox.  For all its greatness, Gundabad, where the Eldest woke, had not been spared that tragic fate; none would contemplate any return to once-glorious Khazad-dûm were it not for the mithril there.

But that was not how Men faced the ill chances of the world.  Few put more than the slightest effort into defense; instead they would fight to regain homes already despoiled.  Was that not what Saelon's folk had done in Srathen Brethil?  How often, as he traveled, had he heard Men tell, with pride, how their fathers took back land from ancient foes or restored fallen houses?

The strategy was unsound, for the dearest things were precisely those that could not be repaired or replaced . . . yet Men, though poor, grew ever more numerous, and Dwarves did not.  How?  Was it their reckless prodigality in the matter of children?  Did they grieve the loss of a child less if half a dozen remained?

Not from what he had heard of Fransag's long lamentation.  And his understanding of the basis of their women's subordination was awry, for weakness and a lack of weapons had not prevented Saelon and Fransag from exacting their own retribution.  Why, then, did women of Men tolerate condescension from those who ought to value them most?

Veylin wished he knew.  He wished he knew how to ease their suffering, or even how to ask what they required, without giving offense or touching what was too tender.

So lost was he in these brooding thoughts that Saelon's voice started him exceedingly.  "Keep him level!"

Artan held the hall door open; Randir was partway in, backing, holding the bowing end of a burdened and tilting hurdle, which promptly righted.

Dírmaen.

Faelnoth looked abashed as he came in with the other end of the hurdle, Saelon close on his heels.  "The first door on the left," she told them curtly, before glancing Veylin's way.  "Rian, you made up a heather bed as I asked?"

Beside him, Rian nodded mutely, staring, hand half-over her mouth.  Saelon's hood was drawn up and a shawl wrapped close about her neck, but one large bruise could still be seen, livid, on her naked cheek.  Veylin had forgotten that the lass had not yet seen her.  As Gaernath jumped up to open the door to Saelon's chamber for those bearing Dírmaen, Rian started to her feet likewise.  "Yes, aunt," she confirmed more clearly, hastening to greet her.  "Although he might certainly have had mine."  Reaching out to embrace her, Rian murmured, "Welcome home.  Will you not sit and take a bite?"

Saelon kissed her niece's cheek.  "No--I will be using yours; and no, thank you."  Glancing around at the gathered Dwarves, her smile was distracted, mechanical.  "Your pardon, Masters, but I must tend to my patient.  Do you have all you could want?"

"All but your good company," Veylin assured her, raising his cup and bowing his head.  Fearing their usual debate over the balance of payments, he refrained from praising the hospitality--overgenerous, given the Men's state of distress--or asking if there was aught else they could do, lest that increase her too-keen sense of obligation.  There would be time enough, later, when her troubles were fewer, to bicker over the unnecessary gift of beeves.  "How does Dírmaen do?"

"Set him down there, beside the bed of fresh heather," Saelon ordered the Rangers, glancing that way.  "Do not move him yet.  I will be there shortly.  The first danger is past," she replied, her face drawn and grave.  "The bleeding has stopped, but he is so weak I pray he will be spared wound-fever.  Master Rekk," she said, turning to the waterwright, "I have not seen that raven--Craec, was it?--of late.  Is he still in your company?"

"He hangs about," Rekk allowed, umber brows canted in curiosity and puzzlement.  "Why do you ask?"

"I wondered if he might carry a message for me."

Rekk harrumphed.  "He might.  Craec is not the most reliable bird, as you well know."

Veylin drank to keep from commenting.  Thekk had never had any problems with the young raven; had been fond of him.  But Rekk had less patience with beasts, even conversable ones, than most Dwarves.

"I am not in a position to be particular."  Saelon's smile was strained.

"Where is the message to go?  Srathen Brethil?"  Rekk looked down the board to the elder of their nephews.  "Thyrnir, you would carry word to the Lady's folk there, would you not?"

"Of course," Thyrnir agreed promptly.

"You are kind," she murmured, "but I would send word to the Elves, not Srathen Brethil."

Rekk set down his cup.  "The Elves?"

Saelon's bruised face was set against the displeasure in his voice.  "Yes.  They must be warned of the outlaws, especially since we are not sure they have all been slain."

"You doubt our assurance that none are to be found?"

Behind Saelon, Randir came to stand in the doorway to her chamber, his dark, tousled hair nearly brushing the lintel, a frown on his grim face.

"Rekk," Veylin rumbled, and when the waterwright cast him a lowering glance, signed for him to leave be.  Foolish, to take her words as a lack of faith in Dwarves.  The leasehold between her and Círdan required her to keep this border for him, as his own folk had not.  "Did you mean to send word to the Havens, or did Coruwi tell you where to seek him?"  At least the Shipwright had set a marchwarden over the north that did not hate Dwarves.

"No, he did not."  Her voice was flat, grudging the effort of vexation.  "That is why I hoped for Craec.  I thought he might make for the Havens, looking for Elves on the way--ravens are keen-eyed--and leave word with the first he found."

Veylin drew on his beard.  Pragmatic as ever; some proof that her wits had not been materially damaged.  Yet Elves peering into every nook of the country would put an end to his plans of prospecting before spring's greenery overtook the land.  He had not told her of that . . . but one of her most congenial traits was the ability to divine and give consideration to things too near to be spoken of.  He sighed, frowning.  "I suppose you must."

"As I said.  If Craec is not to be had, then Gaernath will go."

The lad's glumness was shaken by surprise, though Veylin thought he appeared as anxious as pleased.

Looking from the straight-backed Dúnadaneth to her flame-haired young cousin, Rekk snorted.  "On your own head be it, Lady, if the bird misspeaks!  Should I see him, I will send him to you.  I give no assurances."

"Thank you," she said, bare courtesy, and glanced along the board.  "All of you, for all that you have done," she added, before withdrawing.

Nordri stood, followed by his son and Thyrnir, bowing after her.  Even as they retook their seats, Saelon could be heard through the open door of her chamber, voice clipped and spare, directing the Rangers as they moved their blanket-swaddled comrade to the pallet prepared for him.  When they had done, she thanked them as well, and bid them shut the door behind them.

That was the last they saw or heard of Saelon.  Faelnoth and Randir joined them, at Rian's urging, but not even cream scones and another round of ale could salvage the mood of so mismatched a company.  Veylin would have taken his folk off home as soon as they rose from table, were it not for an ill-sorted sense of duty that kept him loitering on the cliff-shelf until Halpan rode up the track with Hanadan, clutching a bundle of linen, at his back.

More professions of thanks, from boy as well as Man, yet the niceness of gratitude had become cloying, and Veylin feared his farewells were perfunctory.  As his pony ambled through the heather at the easy pace of his tramping companions, Veylin wished he had not parted from Saelon with the shadow of disagreement between them.  For all the inconvenience to himself, he did not resent that she would summon Elves to insure her own safety and that of her people.  How could he, when she had shown him the way to a life-hoard of fire opal?  Her being closeted with Dírmaen, however, prevented free conversation between them.

Dírmaen.  He had been glad to hear that she was rid of the Ranger, but now the Man was back, like a blister from an ill-fitting boot.  Dírmaen had galled Saelon much, during the year he was quartered on her folk . . . yet she now tended him solicitously, neglecting her own hurts to do so.  Why?  Was it gratitude for his slaying of the brigand chief, or a guilt-price?  Dírmaen had wearied her with warnings that it was less safe by the sea than she believed, that she required a Man's protection, _his_ protection, insisting she ought to heed his dictates--

If the Men of the Star had done their job properly, none of the brigands should have crossed the mountains.  Had Dírmaen let them slip to bring her to the dependence he desired?

No: though he and the Ranger did not agree, such suspicions were discreditable.  In justice, there was nothing to uphold them.  Dírmaen was honorable, for a Man; more attentive to Saelon's outward dignity than she was herself.  If he truly wished to partner her, the hazard would have been insupportable . . . and if his hunger knew no bounds, Saelon's solitary prospecting for herbs provided ample opportunity to slake his lust.

Perhaps that was why the Man objected so to her roaming: the temptation tried him.  How would it be now, when he slept in her chamber and she tended his bodily needs?

He must not think of such things!  Saelon was well able to manage her own affairs--she was no kin of his--it was none of his business.  Such prurience dishonored her.  Why must it be any different from when he had been in Dírmaen's place?  The first time Veylin ever saw Saelon, she was dozing at his side, wearied by nursing him: a stranger, alien to her.  How should she be less solicitous to her fellow Dúnedain?  He knew the intimacy of her touch . . .  cool, soothing, no more intrusive than need required--

He was not of her kind; his esteem ran in other channels.  So whence came these thoughts?  They savoured strongly of jealousy, but he had no rights that would countenance such resentment.  Was their friendship so frail a thing that he should fret over whether or not the Ranger was able to secure her affection?

And, maybe, the Man might not survive his wounds.  Men were apt to die.  If he must brood, let him brood over surer troubles--like Auð's wrath at being brought to Gunduzahar through brigand-infested country and summarily set to watch over a child of alien race.

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Auð was not among the company in the hall when they returned, nor in her chambers.  Stepping briefly into his own, Veylin set aside his helm and changed the troll-spear that had served as his stick for less bellicose cherrywood before stumping along the passage and down the stair.  Auð did not often return to her workrooms after supper, but watching over Hanadan would have kept her from her work . . . .  Further cause for dissatisfaction.  Bracing himself for deserved rebuke, he knocked on her door.

The hollow sound echoed faintly off the rough, dark stone of the deserted corridor, the lamps already night-dim.  Where could she be, if not here?  In her suite after all, vexed enough to ignore his rap on the door?  Fingering the head of his stick, Veylin wondered if he ought to knock again.

The click of the latch was his only warning before the door swung open.  There was no mistaking his sister's flaming tresses, framing an expression of mild but not displeased surprise.  "We are all back," he said, seeing her brows knit at his mail.  He had come in haste to avoid further hint of neglect, not bearing bad news.  "So, how indebted am I for your forbearance?"

She chuffed, crow's-feet crinkling in a gratified smile.  "Less than you seem to fear.  Come in."  As she held the door wide, the shrewd emerald of her eyes assayed him.  "A half-dozen bolts to shelve, then I am with you.  Where are the boys?" she asked, as they crossed to her stockroom.

That was why she had not answered the door promptly.  "Having a late supper."

"You are not hungry?"

How could one hope to mislead an elder sister?  "Would you have me as stout as Bersa?  The Men feasted us with venison and lamb, and three leagues is not enough to whet the appetite, when on a pony."

Auð smiled, hefting a bolt of brown linen.  "The more beef for we who remained, then.  So your friend is well?"

Leaning back against the doorjamb, Veylin sighed.  Glad as he was to see she was not discontent, he could not enjoy the relief, not when she asked questions such as this.  "She has prevailed again."

The look Auð gave him, as she stooped to break open the last waxed cloth- and canvas-wrapped bundle, let him know she did not find this a frank answer; but she did not press.  "I am glad to hear it.  The beeves were a handsome quittance.  But that Halpan!  He is no trader.  If that is what the Lady has for menfolk, I begin to understand why she has taken charge."

"Hanadan did not vex you much, I hope."

"No; hardly at all," she assured him.  "A mannerly child, for all his strangeness.  Is it true," she asked, seeming as curious as scandalized, "that he is not yet nine years old?"

"I have no reason to doubt it."  Hanadan had proudly laid claim to seven years when asking for leave to hunt fiends with them, harvest before last.

"His father was slain by the fiends, and his mother abandoned him to Halpan's care?"

Veylin pursed his lips.  What else had the boy prattled of?  "So I understand."

"And he is so little attended to that he was able to follow the Lady when she came to visit, without his uncle's knowledge?"

"Is that how he knew where to find us?"  It was hard not to smile as he shook his head resignedly.  "Do not judge all children of Men by that venturesome scamp.  He is bolder than any I have seen."

"But how can he be allowed to stray out of safekeeping, at so young an age?"  Auð thrust the next bolt into its place.

"I do not pretend to understand Men in such things."

That did not satisfy her.  "The farmer with seven children--Maelchon--is his wife as careless of her sons?"

"Six, now," Veylin murmured, low.  "I do not know what Men would consider careless."

Auð straightened up, clutching a roll of rich amber wool to her breast.  "A child was slain?"

"Their youngest."  The only one not roaming at perilous liberty.

Her rising outrage was smothered like a fire under too much fuel, and for several breaths she stared at him, soberly appalled.  "Fram said two of the brigands were slain within Maelchon's house," she muttered, stroking the fabric beneath her hand.  "However did they get in?"

"Maelchon was out seeking his servant and missing cattle; his wife went to fetch Saelon's aid for her ailing mother.  When the women reached the house, the villains sprang out and seized them."  So much he had been told.  No one spoke of what came before.  "The door had not been forced.  It may be that the serving woman let them in.  They are a kindly people, welcoming to strangers."

It would be easy to scorn such imprudence, dismiss their griefs as self-invited . . . yet he owed his life to Saelon's indiscriminate hospitality.

"And then?"

"Saelon and Fransag slew them."

Suspicion sharpened her look.  "You told me the women of Men are not trained in arms," she reminded him, taking the woolen to its shelf.

"They are not."  What did it matter, if he distressed her?  She would be demanding an escort back to Sulûnduban anyway, she and the other women.  "Saelon killed one with the knife I traded her, and Maelchon's wife beat the other to death with a stone ripped from her hearth."

Auð grunted, and came back to take up another bolt.  "Where did these brigands come from?  You have said nothing of them before."

"I knew nothing of them.  They came from Coldfell, north of the Emyn Uial.  Some were Men of Angmar; others broken Men from various parts of Eriador."  Some even from Srathen Brethil, depraved enough to prey on their former fellows.  "They took refuge in Srathen Brethil when harried by the Men of the Star and, attacked there, the survivors fled across the mountains."

"Have they all been accounted for, now?"

Veylin rubbed at a scratch on his stick, the roughness an irritation.  "One or two may still be at large.  We found no sign of them, so Saelon is sending word to Lindon.  If they have not died in the snow-mantled hills, the Elves will swiftly bring them down."

"Elves?"  Auð scowled.  "How will you prospect, with Elves scouring the country?"

"As well as with the suspicion of starving thieves behind every outcrop and bush."  He shrugged, sighing.  "Perhaps I ought to have tarried in Sulûnduban until the tracks were clear after all."

"And left your friend unaided?"

He could not tell, from her harsh expression, whether she approved or not.  "What did we do, save intrude upon their grief and eat their food?  The brigands were slain before we arrived.  The Men did not need our aid."  Saelon was well able to manage her own affairs.  Had he not always said as much?  Why, then, did he continually press his support and counsel upon her, whether she asked for it or no?

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Notes

**Saddle** : a cut of meat from the back of an animal, including both loins--the tenderest part.  The haunch would be tougher but have more flavor.

**Burr-stone** : a millstone of coarse quartz grit.

**Wound-fever** : bacterial infection of his wounds.  In pre-modern medical systems, which had no conception of bacteria or viruses, illnesses were usually classified (and treated) by symptom rather than cause.  In this age of antibiotics, we have generally forgotten how serious bacterial infections can be . . . and weakened by blood loss, Dírmaen's immune system is not going to be at peak form.

**Quartered on** : before the modern period, it was common for the military to assign troops to live in civilian households.  Not only did this save the government the expense of housing and feeding them--it was another way to tax one's subjects--but it had the added advantage of discouraging civil unrest.  "On" clearly shows this was considered an imposition.

**Broken Men** : men whose lives are ruined; outlaws.  This was the usual term in the Highlands.


	17. Echoes

_Pass on, let us pass, all is passing,  
_ _And I will look back many times:_

_The sound of hunting horns, when it dies  
_ _On the wind, is like our memories._

\--Guillaume Apollinaire, "Hunting Horns"

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"No," Saelon decided.  "The meeting in Srathen Brethil was fixed.  You must keep it, if you would have our folk's faith.  Especially if there is risk of reivers."

Halpan shook his head, mouth tight, unhappy.  "How can we leave, after what has happened?  Who will guard you?"

Sighing, she kneaded the ache in her bruised hand.  "Randir is staying--" the Ranger was in her chamber, watching over Dírmaen while they held this council "--Craec is on his way to Lindon, and the Dwarves are near to hand.  The reivers were not formidable foes; it was that they took us unawares.  We will be more vigilant now."  The afternoon sun, though still too feeble to warm, was like a blessing on her face, and she rested her shoulders against the stone of the cliff, a bulwark at her back.  It was good to be out of the closeness of the sick-room, breathing the free, salt-scented air.  A pity it was not warmer, or she would have them bring Dírmaen out as well.

Unswayed, Halpan turned to Faelnoth.  "Will you not help me convince her?"

The grizzled Ranger drew on his long chin, eyeing them doubtfully.  "I do not think I will," he confessed.  "The Lady is correct.  If a good watch is kept--I vouch for Randir, and that lad Gaernath has a sharp eye--your people should be safe enough.  Safer than many in Eriador, with so snug a stronghold as this and Elves to beat the bounds!  If you appointed to meet your men in Srathen Brethil, I urge you to hold to your plan.  The outlaws lodged there because it is deserted--we must populate it with decent folk again.  We might spare you one of our number there, as well as here," he allowed, "to guard you until you have men enough to spare, but we Rangers are stretched thin.  If you will not come back to our side of the Lune, you must look to your own safety."

Saelon nodded.  "I understand.  Halpan, go."

"In a few days, perhaps.  I would see how Dírmaen does, and whether this Coruwi comes."

An excuse for delay; and if Dírmaen did poorly or Coruwi did not come, he would use that as an excuse to remain.  "You ought to go with Faelnoth.  If any reivers remain, they will be in the hills.  Three men will be safer than two."  Partalan would not go if Halpan stayed . . . and she would rather the mistrustful swordsman was not here to strike sparks from Lindon's borderers.  Not all of Círdan's folk were friendly to Men.

"And, to tell the truth," Faelnoth admitted, gamely shamefaced, "I would be glad of a guide.  Dírmaen drove us at such a pace that I am not sure I could find my way back again through that maze of peaks."

If that was offered as a lure to his pride, Halpan did not rise.  "You will not wait to see whether your comrade lives or dies?" he charged, sullenness giving his mouth an ugly set.

Faelnoth was genial, for a Ranger, but his easy manner hardened in offense, showing the iron beneath.  "That is a luxury not often afforded Rangers.  Halgorn and Hanend are keeping watch and watch in Srathen Brethil, waiting for news . . . and perhaps have your men to deal with as well.  One we can spare.  Randir is Dírmaen's friend, therefore he will stay and I must go.  It is not as if more hands will speed Dírmaen's recovery."

True; there was little enough for anyone to do now.  For the most part, Dírmaen slept, or lay as if sleeping, too weak to sit for long, perpetually chilled.  Nordri had brought a half-dozen large cobbles from the riverbed, stones that would bear heating in the fire again and again without breaking, and these they snugged, wrapped in blankets, beside the Ranger's shins and forearms, two always in the fire to refresh their warmth.  Canand, who would be halt for some weeks, had showed Finean how to bleed a stirk, and Saelon fed the hot dark blood to her patient in a clabber of ewe's milk, to replace what he had shed in their defense.

In her defense.

Though her head no longer ached, she did not want to think on that, for she did not like the look or smell of the swordcut on his arm.  The slash across his back, which had nearly been his death, was no longer much threat; would likely never have been, if he had not galloped across country to reach them, the violence of motion continually breaking it open afresh.  Still, the effusion of blood had cleansed the wound, which seeped little and clear.

The arm, though: that wound was deep, and she had not dared to clean it as thoroughly as she would have liked, unwilling to bleed him whiter still.  Nor had she had the most virtuous simples for such wounds to hand at Maelchon's.

Fretting over it would do no good now.  What was done was done, and she must pray he was not too enfeebled to bear the fever that had begun to touch him.

"Lady, are you well?"

"Hm?"  Saelon blinked, and found Faelnoth gazing at her with concern.  "Oh, pardon me--  I was thinking on my patient."

"Is there anything I can do that will aid Dírmaen?" he asked, soberly earnest.  "If so, I--we--are at your command.  We cannot spare men of his mettle . . . but then you know his quality better than I, since he was so long among you."

Saelon could not in honesty say aye; did not recall any great feat Dírmaen had accomplished, unless daring her displeasure could be accounted heroism.  Yes, he had battled the _raugs_ \--as had Halpan; and Partalan, Aniel, and even Veylin, lameness notwithstanding.  Dírmaen had struck her as a cautious man, rather: a watcher, quiet, calculating.

She found him quiet enough now.

"What was decided, Lady?" Randir asked when she returned to relieve him, rising from beside the low bed of heather where his friend lay.  "Will your men stay, or go?"

"They will go, as promised," she answered, coming to lay a hand on Dírmaen's brow, testing for fever.

Was it disapproval that made him turn his face, pale and set, from her, or shame?  He had ridden gallantly to their rescue, only to require saving himself.  To be so weak, under her hands, must be mortifying to his pride . . . or it might be that her touch tormented him.  Yet there was no one else to nurse him.  Even if Rian had the skill, it was not fit that a maid should tend a man grown, no kin to her.  Muirne had two infant sons, the elder at that trying age when "No!" was a favorite word; it was enough that she had taken in Tearlag, mute and still as a wounded bird.  Murdag's time drew near and she fretted, this being her first, too taken with her big belly to attend properly to another . . . and her poor sister was striving, with Rian, to do all that would otherwise be left undone.

Dírmaen would have to suffer her care, as well as his wounds.  Maybe it would cure him of his fancy for her.

If he lived.  Fever grew on him that evening, and did not ebb with the new day.

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Hands--a man's hands--reaching--

Saelon started awake, breath catching.  The walls of her chamber were dusky cream in the lamp's low glim, the chalky scent of close stone an old friend, soothing hammering heart as well as mind.  No danger; it was over . . . days past.  Those who had hurt her were dead, one from her own blow--the hand-smoothed hilt of the knife Veylin had given her was here, half-hidden in the heather of Rian's pallet--and if any remained, their days would be short if they did not flee far, far from here.

Groping her shawl from the floor, Saelon sat up and looked over at Dírmaen, stretched out on his own bed of heather a few paces away.  The lamplight combined with his pallor to give him a very ill color, and though his breathing was easy and quiet, sweat was beginning to sheen his face once more.

She had hoped that the fever had finally broken.  After scrubbing at her sleep-gritted eyes, Saelon reached for the stoup.  What little was left hardly slaked her own thirst.  She would have to refill it.  Tucking the dwarf-knife into the band of her skirt, she rose and slipped out, shutting the door silently behind her.

The hall was dimmer still, but the dark shapes of sleeping men caught her eye nonetheless.  Always this shuffling for space . . . .  Why had she not asked Veylin and Nordri for five chambers, or six?  Shifting Rian from her room had thrown Finean and Tieg into the common room, though Unagh remained where she had been mistress.  Saelon would have offered the men her cave, but that was not secure.  At least Randir had accepted Halpan's invitation to take his place in the chamber the men of her household occupied.

Yet it might have been worse.  If Fransag had abandoned her house, there would have been eight more to find room for.

Shaking her head to break the thought--she did not need to work out where she would have put them--Saelon lifted the heavy oaken beam that secured the door, set her hand on her knife, and stepped out into the night.

"Lady!"

She jumped at the voice, which sounded no less startled, but it was one she knew well, and the waxing moon, low in the west, cast a glimmer on fair hair.  "Artan!  Whatever are you doing out here?"

The young cottar gave a low laugh of uneasy relief.  "Keeping watch, Lady.  And you?"

Saelon held up the empty stoup.  "Fetching water."  Had anyone told her they were setting a night-watch?  "With a barred door at your back?"

"How else?  We cannot let the villains walk in, if they take the watchman."

"True."  Pounding on the door would be as good an alarm as any; Finean, outside his daughter's door, slept lightly.  "But why must you sit guard?  We are not so short of men as that."  Such a duty should fall on the unmarried men, or Finean, whose daughters were grown, not a young father who would leave his wife and infant sons bereft, if ill befell him.

"I would rather," Artan said stoutly.  "It is not right that Gaernath and the Ranger should patrol all day, and watch all night, too.  The more of us who take a turn, the less burdensome it is."

Saelon managed a smile.  "Thank you, Artan.  I will rest easier, knowing you are here."  When had the gawky lad become such a fine young man?  Muirne had chosen well, when she followed him rather than her parents from the wreck of Srathen Brethil.

It was not far to the spring, the soft music of its fall as sweet a balm as the distant murmur of the surf; as the stoup filled, she trailed her hand through the chill water in the basin.  Though the bruises, an ugly, muddy violet tinged with yellow, had begun to fade, the ache remained.  Something was not right within, though she could not tell what.  She had thought to while away the long hours she sat beside Dírmaen by spinning, but the hand did not serve, not long, without pain.

Too early to worry, yet; time healed much, and it had not been a week since the man of Angmar had kicked her.  She must rest it as best she could and trust it would knit.

"How is Dírmaen?" Artan asked as she came back.

"No worse."

His face was a pale mask in the moonlight, but Saelon could hear the grief in his voice.  "But no better, either?"

She shook her head, sighing.  "The fever is obstinate . . . and he was much weakened by his wounds."

For the space of a few breaths, Artan simply gazed at her.  "I cannot believe, Lady," he observed, "that anything is more stubborn than the two of you together."

That jerked a laugh from her; oh, how wry.  "We will hope not."  She had thought none knew of the Ranger's avowal save Veylin, whose discretion was like a rock . . . though Artan might merely mean to hearten her.  She made no secret of her pride in her Dúnedain tenacity, nor could she deny that Dírmaen matched her in persistence.  "May what is left of your night be peaceful, Artan."

"And for you, Lady."

Setting the bar back in its place, shutting that good young man out of the little safety they had, gave her a pang in more than her hand.  She had been so certain of the peace of the sea.  For years she had dwelt here, alone, unguarded, with never a qualm . . . .  Yet one person brought another, it seemed, and another and another, troubles multiplying along with them.  Taking in Veylin had drawn his kin, whose conduct fetched her brother and his men, which led folk's feet this way when driven, rumor whereof tempted hounded men--

No wonder the Elves were unwelcoming.

Had she done some wrong that broke the sweet spell of serenity?  As she closed her chamber door she snorted softly at the thought that the sea could be jealous of her company.  That was vanity, overweening vanity, if not impiety; naught but a fancy in her own mind, an answer for those who would have every woman under some man's care.  She loved the sea, but did not truly believe the sea returned her regard.  It was; it had been here ages before she was born and would roll on ages after she was gone.

Saelon went to fetch Dírmaen's bowl, then set about mixing a stronger dose of meadowsweet and watercress.  There might be other grounds for offense, however.  There was some antipathy between Dwarves and the sea, and she had given intelligence of its motions to Veylin.  Though surely the stone-shell he had given her meant something.  Veylin thought so.  But what?  She tried to remember what Círdan had said of the token.  Little; some jest of pearl and greed.  Nothing foreboding.  If any could speak for the sea, it must be the Shipwright.  Why did Dwarves fear the waves?  She wondered if Círdan knew.

Shaking her head to rid it of such queer night-thoughts, she carried the draught to her patient, then brought the lamp nearer, lifting the wick to get better light.  If he had not been bled so white, his flush would have told her something of his fever, but that was now a poor sign and she must judge it by how many of his coverings he had cast off and the heat of his flesh.  By the first measure, this looked to be another bad one, for the blankets that warmed him through the chills were rutched off to one side, only the last light linen sheet remaining and his legs kicked out from under that, resting on the floor.

During the worst bout so far, she had come back from ordering pails of snow-born river water to bathe him and found he had rolled from the heather of his bed to lay spread-eagled on the hard rock, embracing its coolness, nearly as pale as the stone save for the livid sweep of the wound across his back.

Other wounds he had borne in his time, the scars paler still on his pallid flesh, mapping a life she did not know.  Though he lay stripped beneath her hands, he was in many ways still a stranger to her, a silent man, near as close as a Dwarf.

Saelon laid the back of her hand on his sweat-dewed brow and the lids of his eyes lifted a little, showing a brief gleam before subsiding again.  So weak, and the fever burning what strength remained out of him.  If tears were not useless, she would weep.

Instead, she carefully unwrapped the crusted bandage from about his arm, softening the stained linen with water where she must, until his arm was bare, the swordcut plain to see.  An ugly wound, still, but no longer putrid.  Poultice on poultice and painful probing had drawn the worst of the poison; she murmured apologies as she pressed out more foulness, laving the angry rent clean with the cool purity of water from the spring.

Dírmaen suffered it all without complaint, only the stiffness of his limbs and tautness of his face showing he was awake and aware, lashes--so dark against his pallor--locked down in the hollows beneath his eyes.

While his wound dried, Saelon drew a sodden cloth across his brow, down the slopes of his cheeks, over the jut of his chin, wiping away the sweat, the crusts about his mouth and eyes.  A good face: strong, shapely bone and more flesh than when she had last seen him, a boon in this battle.  Wherever he had gone, when he left, he had not pined.  His corded throat; the muscled dip and swell of his shoulders; the warm plain of his breast . . . .

Saelon shook her head again and set the cloth aside.  How weary she must be, for her thoughts to be straying so, and in such directions!  Most improper, in a healer; particularly perilous with this man.  Yet it had been years, many years, since she last nursed a man in this way.  A Man: Veylin's neat, compact brawn had roused curiosity more than desire, wonder at the way his odd proportions came together as a harmonious whole.  Was he considered a handsome man among his people?  She did not know.  Dwarves did not speak of such things.

If one favored the dark austerity of the Dúnedain, Dírmaen was handsome enough; she did not find fault with his face, nor even with his sternness, only that it should grate so contrarily against her own.  Sighing, she reached for the pot of ointment, all-heal and goldenrod in fresh butter, and salved his wound before binding it up again in clean linen.  However had he come to fancy her, if indeed he did and his avowal had not been a blind to win her complaisance more than her heart?

The deadly fury on his face, as he stared across her at the reiver chief, she would never forget; nor the expression of harrowed dread as he clutched her in his arms, before he fell.

That did not look like artful policy.  Yet she would almost rather it was, for then she would be assured that her refusal gave no real pain, or at least scathed his wits rather than his heart.  Though she had scant cause for pride there, either, for his professions of possible peril had all come true.  What if she had gone to the oakwood for primroses, alone or with Rian--who wanted some to make wine--and been seized by the reivers near their camp?  Eight of them . . . .

Her breath shuddered..  She had no illusions about what would have befallen her; Fransag's struggle with that goatish beast was seared into her memory.  Dírmaen's cautions had not been groundless: his desire to keep watch over her need not have been mere mistrust of her dealings with Veylin, or disapproval of her independence.  He had been right.  She had been too self-assured, and was fortunate not to have fared worse.  However was she to make amends?

Wetting the cloth again, she laid its chill against his neck, where the hot blood beat high, just beneath the skin.  "Dírmaen," she pressed, voice low, "will you sit up a little, to take your draught?"

Again, the gleam of part-lifted lids; breath catching with effort and pain, he managed to push himself up with the elbow of his sound arm.  Slipping hers beneath his shoulders to balance and steady him, Saelon set the bowl to his cracked lips and he drank with parched greed.  She murmured encouragement, feeling the heat of him, cradled in her arm; the more meadowsweet he took, the better pleased she would be.

When he had drained the bowl, she smiled.  "There," she softly assured him, "that will do you good."

His eyes opened a bit wider, enough to see their grey, midway between the glitter of fever and the flatness of fatigue, and he licked his lips, as if he thought of speaking.  Saelon waited.  He had spoken hardly at all, to her at least, save a few words for necessities; even in the throes of fever, he did not babble, as some did.  He leaned a little closer, and she angled her head to show interest as she shifted her arm to take his weight.

He fell more than lunged across the span that remained between them, lips mashing against hers in a desperate kiss; working and tasting around a throaty sob.  Shocked, she did not think to drop the bowl at once, so she could use that hand to push him away.  "Dírmaen!"

Such desolate eyes, full of need and shame.  "I did not want to die without . . . ." he husked.

"Sshh," she hushed, pressing, easing him back down onto his bed.  "Do not speak so.  You are not going to die."

Yet his gaze was full of doubt and despair, and despair killed more men than fever ever did.  "Come," she urged, taking his calloused, long-fingered hand in hers and clasping it tight, "do not give way now, when the battle is nearly won.  How am I to repay you, if you do not persevere?"

"I did not come to put you in my debt," he whispered, lids drooping, exhausted by his effort.

"I never thought so," she soothed.  Was that truth, or was that lie?  She did not know.  It did not matter.  She would not lose him if she could help it.  If she did not value him, others did.

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Notes

**Clabber** : curdled milk.

**Watercress** ( _Nasturtium officinalis_ ): while most people think of this as something that goes on a sandwich or in a salad, it was commonly used to reduce fever and strengthen the blood.  It is rich in vitamins and minerals, including iron.


	18. Men of Peace

_Witness the nature of the creatures, their caprice, their way of being good to the good and evil to the evil, having every charm but conscience--consistency.  Beings so quickly offended that you must not speak much about them at all, and never call them anything but the "gentry," or else_ daoine maithe _, which in English means good people, yet so easily pleased, they will do their best to keep misfortune away from you, if you leave a little milk for them on the window-sill over night._

\--William Butler Yeats, _Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry_

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

"There is no more meadowsweet?"  Rian glanced back across the brittle bundles of stem and leaf, the small bags of root and seed, that lay atop whatever was handy in the part of the byre-cave that served as their storehouse.

"It seems not."  Saelon refolded the last wallet--wood pease roots--and set it aside before upending the kist, shaking out green dust and dry curls of leaf.  She had been sure none of that useful febrifuge remained, but it had done no harm to turn over all that was left of her store of herbs.  The gowans might be useful.  A pity she had used so much of what strengthened the lungs on Gràinne, who had let go of her pain and now lay beside her granddaughter on the high bank above the river, may bushes planted at head and foot.

Their first dead, in this place.  Aniel had died in Srathen Brethil and was buried there, among his longfathers.  Perhaps it was good that the little one was no longer alone.  So small a patch of raw earth was a desolate thing.

"Oh!  Forgive me," Rian begged, as Saelon righted and began repacking the kist.  "I ought to have been more careful in drying what we gathered while you were away!"

Tsking, Saelon paused to rub at the ache in her hand.  "Fretting now does no good.  It is difficult to avoid spoilage, in this damp climate.  Pass me the spearwort, and the groundsel.  I will forgive you if you fetch sallow bark--there is plenty along the river bank.  It is nearly as virtuous as meadowsweet, though it does not taste so nice."

Relief, that her carelessness would not be fatal to Dírmaen, eased Rian's anxious face, her habitual cheer flashing out like a gleam of spring sun.  "Gladly!  How much would you like?"

A shadow crossed the light; dark wings beat at the cave's mouth, ominous.

Startled, Saelon stared as a great black bird swooped in, landing on one of the hurdles that fenced the horses from their stores, hardly two paces from her.  "Craec?" she hazarded as it folded its wings, head cocked to fix her with one gleaming jet eye.

"Elves," it said, in an eerie voice.

How many ravens were there that could speak?  "You found them?"

Craec preened one already sleek shoulder.  "Yes."

"Will they come?"

"Nearly here.  Half sun-fall."

Half--?  Saelon ducked her head to peer at the sky outside the cave.  Heavy cloud was rolling in from the sea, hiding the sun; yet it was well past midday.  "How many?"

The raven put its head to one side as if considering.  "Two."

Saelon bit her lip, uncertain whether to be relieved or disappointed.  Two guests could be easily housed and fed, though two seemed too few to scour the hills.

"Mead or ale?" Rian asked.

"Pardon?"

"Would it be better to serve them mead or ale?"

With a surge of alarm, Saelon realized she did not know what was in the larder--then determinedly dismissed her qualms of negligence.  Rian could manage.  "I would offer them mead and your bramble wine.  Is the small cave fit to put them in?"

"It will be," Rian promised.  "You truly think my wine good enough for Elves?"  No doubt she was remembering Bereth's humiliation, when Falathar refused a cowslip wine of her making.

"Truly."  The smile that brought to her niece's face lightened Saelon's burdened heart a little.  "Go--I will put all away here."  As Rian dashed off, she turned back to the raven, which gazed on her without the wariness of a wild thing.  An uncanny bird; more inscrutable than its Dwarvish master, if Rekk were its master.  He had disparaged the bird . . . but Rekk approved of little.  Saelon recalled the first time she had seen the raven: out on the bog-moor, guarding the _raug_ -slain Dwarves from carrion birds such as himself.

If he had misspoke when bringing news of those grim deaths to their kin, it was surely through strangeness of tongue rather than malice.  A young bird, they said.  "Thank you, Craec, for carrying my message."  Gathering up bundles of foxglove and bloodwort that lay atop the box of part-rancid dried fish that went to the dogs, she set them aside.  "Can you tell me who is coming?"

"Coruwi."  He watched with keen interest as she took up the box.

"You found him?" she exclaimed, surprised.

Raising his feathers to swell his sable bulk, Craec angled his stout bill in what looked like haughty pride.  "Yes."

Saelon smiled at his posing, as well as in relief.  Not that she would not have welcomed any of Círdan's men, but Coruwi was less daunting than many; and he had been courteous to Veylin.  Taking the lid from the box, she drew out a generous handful of strong-smelling fish.  "Pray accept this as some repayment for your labors, and do not doubt your welcome here."

Eyes bright, Craec spread half-opened wings in a bow as she laid the oily flesh on the head of a keg.  "Lady."

"Will you do me one more favor?"

Perhaps it was crouching to spring that gave him a chary look.  "What?"

"Take word of Coruwi's coming--say that it is Coruwi!--to Veylin."

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Saelon slipped back into her chamber after changing in Unagh's, to put away her ragged old dress and find a shawl that would suit the sea-foam color of her gown.  Made by Rian that winter, this was the first occasion she had had to wear it.  She was rummaging through her kist when a low cough came from Dírmaen's pallet.  Stilling, she prayed he would not fully rouse.

In vain.  "What is afoot?" he rasped.

Abandoning her search, she went to him.  "Nothing ill.  Coruwi is coming."

"Coruwi . . . " he muttered, brows knit, and coughed again: deeper, an unpromising sound.

She had feared this.  His wound was healing, but the fever, though lower, had not left him, and seemed to be shifting to his lungs.  Would that it were not the spiteful tail of winter, the days either too wet or too chill to take an invalid out into the free air!  Clotted lungs would break his rest, stealing the sleep that was his greatest ally.  "Here," she said, lifting him a little.  "Drink this."

"No."  He turned his face away.

"It will ease your cough."

"I do not want it."

Saelon huffed.  Fretfulness bespoke returning strength, hopeful after so many days of enfeebled passivity, but must he be a trial now?  "Then Coruwi must get all his news from Randir.  You can spare energy enough for a brief visit, or for coughing.  Choose."

The look he turned on her was wanly baleful.  "Why will you not let Randir nurse me?"

"Because he cannot be spared from keeping watch."

Another cough racked him.  "Very well," he agreed after a long pause, petulant.

When he had taken a few swallows, she rearranged the rolled blanket beneath his head to raise his shoulders a little more.  "Sleep, if you can," she urged.

"I am sick of sleeping."

She was sure he was.  Ten days he had lain abed now, confined, and he was an active man.  "If you are no worse tomorrow," she told him, combing his hair with her fingers to neaten him for guests, "you may come into the hall for a while, at a time of your choosing."

A soft tap on the door, and Muirne peeped in.  "Lady, they are coming up the track."

"Thank you.  Is there anything else you need?" Saelon asked Dírmaen.

Shaking his head, he shut his eyes and turned his face away.

Quickly she returned to her kist, digging deep to bring up pale golden lambswool, one of the last gifts from her brother, too fine for life here.  The scent of thyme came with it, soothing to the agitated mind.  Shaking off a few clinging leaves, Saelon cast about for a brooch, hoping Rian had left one behind.  Apparently not.  She hastened out, draping the fine fabric over her shoulders, through the hall and into the raw grey afternoon.

"Ah!  There you are!" Coruwi called out, hand at his breast as Rian curtseyed before him.  Artan was leading Coll off to the byre-cave as Gaernath made the introductions; the second Elf, standing behind Coruwi with both their spears in hand, was Eregai, who had spoken to her of herbs at their supper in Mithlond.  "Well met, Lady!"

" _Mae govannen_ ," she replied, making her own reverence as she joined them.  "Thank you, Coruwi, Eregai, for coming so swiftly."

"It is nothing," the marchwarden dismissed.  "We intended to visit you before Tuilérë, to help you bring in the new year.  Any excuse to sample your famed hospitality is welcome, although I wish it had been one less grievous to you and your folk."

"How much have you heard of our troubles?"  Surely Craec had not told them the tale, yet Coruwi gazed on her as gravely as if his keen eyes could still see some trace of the bruises that had faded from her face.

The Elf nodded towards Gaernath.  "Your kinsman told us much, as he brought us hither."

Above them, the threatening clouds finally broke, rain pattering down.  "Come into the hall," Saelon said hastily, drawing her shawl over her head, "and we will talk more."

Once inside, the wet shaken off and cups of wine in their guests' hands, Eregai wandered back towards the door, gazing on the panels of carved birches.  "Who did this?" he asked, lightly touching the slender boles.  "Surely it is a remembrance of Srathen Brethil."

Saelon sipped her mead, studying the forester.  "It is."  Which of the many kinds of Elves was he, and what were his views on Dwarves?  He had said nothing when the subject was broached at the marchwardens' board, in the autumn.  Like his captain, he was clad in muted green leather and bore no sword.  Were they Laegrim, Green Elves of the wood, or was this the livery of their service?  "Nyrað, Nordri's son, carved it."

Eregai's surprise appeared mild.  "Truly?  I should like to meet a Dwarf who has such a feel for trees."

"Alas, he was one of those slain freeing Srathen Brethil from the _raugs_."  Although she had not known Nyrað well and more recent sorrows pressed on her heart, there seemed a special grief in this, as at a child stillborn.  "His father and brother, however, are our neighbors.  I do not think," she ventured, as the Elf drew his hand from the stone, "that Nyrað's taste was peculiar.  The pillars of Veylin's hall are carved in the likeness of trees--the boles of great ash trees."

"Indeed?"  But Eregai's interest had palled.

"You have been in Veylin's hall?" Coruwi asked, before murmuring, "Thank you," to Unagh as he took a nut cake.

Saelon shook her head at Unagh, bidding her pass on.  "Yes, I have.  That surprises you?"

"Perhaps not."  The Elf's shapely lips quirked into a smile.  "How fares your friend?  What can we do, that he has not already done?"

"Nothing, maybe.  Gaernath told you that we are not certain all the reivers have been slain?"  His other question she left lie, unsure of the answer.  She had seen little of Veylin while he was here.

Coruwi nodded.  "Craec, as well.  The rest of my company is already scouting shore and hill for the ruffians."  Looking around at the others in the hall, for the most part women, he declared, "If any remain, we will roust them out, never fear.  Our own folk will soon be coming to this country, so we thank you for the promptness of your warning."

"The terms of our tenure require us to watch and guard."  That others might not be taken unawares, as they were.

If the bitterness that edged her voice wounded the marchwarden, it did not anger him.  "You give all that could be asked, Lady; more.  Círdan will hear of the price you have paid."

She did not want to be always angry at them, or fearful; could not, if she was to remain here, on their shores.  "Forgive me, I did not mean--"

Coruwi laid one long-fingered hand over hers, briefly, the warm strength of his clasp a comfort.  "I only meant to assure you that we would search diligently, and to praise you for your resource.  I had not heard that you were a friend of birds, as well as Dwarves."

"I am not, but the Dwarves are, of Craec at least.  That is how I came by his services."

"Trees and birds and the Sea!"  He arched one brow.  "Will we be seeing Veylin and his companions while we are here?"

Saelon shrugged, fingering the stem of her dwarf-turned cup.  "I cannot say.  They are not so near that we see them often."  Veylin usually came, swiftly, when she sent word of Elves . . . when there was some fear of their removal, or the Elf was his rival gemsmith.  Would he come merely to meet Coruwi, so soon after marching in force to their relief?  She would spare him the trip and take the Elf to Gunduzahar, were it not for his injunction of secrecy.

Yet that had been made two years ago, and many of them had been to his halls since.  How hidden could they be, when even Hanadan knew the way?

Smiling, Coruwi drank his wine.  "Yes," he allowed, "three leagues is a fair distance.  If he comes, I will be glad: I would like to hear what--if anything--the Dwarves are doing to guard the mountains against such interlopers."

"The reivers came over the mountains, to be sure, but not from the mountains.  They were on Coldfell, beyond the Lhûn, when the Rangers first had word of them."

"Then took refuge in Srathen Brethil, when harried?"

"That is what the Rangers Faelnoth and Randir told me."

The marchwarden took a thoughtful bite of nut cake.  "Whither your kinsman Halpan and your swordsman have gone, with Faelnoth."

"They were appointed to meet with three of our husbandmen who desired to return there, in time for plowing and planting."

"Yes, you said you intended to resettle the vale."

That was what she had declared before those assembled to witness the payment of their rent in Mithlond, true; yet she had told Círdan, privily, that she and others of her folk would remain here.  He had not welcomed it . . . but neither had he objected, and the ambiguity in what had been spoken before his people was his.  Who was she to dispute his wisdom?  "Halpan was loath to go, but Faelnoth urged us to hold to our plans, lest the glen become a lair of wolf's-heads."

"What was Dírmaen's counsel?"

Coruwi had been friendly to Dírmaen during their time in the Havens; the Ranger had first introduced her to the marchwarden.  "Did Gaernath not tell you?  He was gravely wounded in our defense, and has been very ill."

"I grieve to hear it.  Has been, you say?  He is recovering?" the Elf asked, with every sign of concern.

"He is . . . though he is not yet out of danger.  Would you care to see him?  I am sure he would like it, and a brief visit would do no harm."

"Certainly!  Whenever would be convenient."

Smiling, Saelon set down her cup.  "Then come now, if you will."

As she had suspected, Dírmaen was not sleeping; she did not doubt he had been striving to follow the conversation in the hall, muted though it was by stone and oak.  "Here is a fresh face for you," she said, stepping aside so Coruwi could enter.

The Elf spared one glance for the chamber before striding to Dírmaen's pallet.  "What is this, friend?" he asked, hunkering down beside him.  "Laid low by a few foul hillmen, after mastering the monsters of the mere?"

Standing unregarded by the door, Saelon frowned as Dírmaen's answer was delayed by a cough; two, three: a dull, flat sound that cleared nothing.  "As you see," the Ranger rasped, taking the proffered hand . . . but only for a few breaths.  "I am glad you are here, Coruwi."

"Rest easy," the marchwarden told him.  "If any of the rogues escaped you, we will have them.  Gaernath said some were Men of Carn Dûm.  Is that true?"

Dírmaen gave a faint nod.  "The leader.  Many of the others."

"Did the leader escape?"

Eyes glinting under heavy lids, fierce satisfaction scudded across the Ranger's gaunt face.  "No."

Coruwi smiled.  "That was worth a wound . . . provided you are soon afoot again.  Sleep now, and we will talk more on the morrow.  _No mae_!"

Yet the Elf's face was grave when he rose to leave, turning back towards Saelon.  Once she had drawn the door closed behind them, he asked, "Lady, will you show me your garth and garden?  The rain has passed, and the day bids to end fine, for Gwaeron."

For Gwaeron.  "If you like."  Taking Rian's cloak from the peg by the door, she settled it high about her throat as Coruwi reclaimed his, so the blue woolen would not trail in the mud.  Hers, already old and frayed, had been condemned for rags after the wrenchings and blood of the reivers.

The rain had passed, though its threaded curtain still veiled the sheep-flecked northern headland; to the west, slanting brilliance pierced the cloud, cascades of light that made dappled silver of the sea, defying the gloom.

So beautiful, in all its moods.

At her shoulder, Coruwi gazed seaward as well.  Did it speak to him, an Elf of wood and lea, or did he hear the call that had drawn so many of his people beyond the circles of the world?  "Little wonder you are attached to this place," he said, as thicker cloud dimmed the light.  "How long have you dwelt here, Saelon?"

She had to tell the years over in her mind: the wet summer that she came; the next, when Halladan found her and they quarreled; her first plot of corn . . . .  "Almost two dozen years."  Had it been that many?  So often they had passed like the long, sweet days of Nórui, each one as welcome as the last.

Turning, he considered the pale rampart of the cliff, Artan sitting on the bench outside the byre-cave, cleaning Coll's bridle.  "Why does this Maelchon not dwell here with you?"

"Not for any lack of liking," she assured him.  "We are used to having a little distance between families, and Maelchon's is large, with many children."

The marchwarden gave a soft chuff.  "Little wonder Dírmaen is care-worn, watching over you all, with so few men of arms among you."

Saelon set her mouth.  What did he mean by that?  "Dírmaen left us as soon as we returned from Mithlond.  I understood that if we will not cross the Lhûn, or at least return to Srathen Brethil, we cannot expect the Chieftain's protection.  If Dírmaen has been wearied, it was not by us."

For what seemed like a long time, Coruwi gazed on her, saying nothing, until she felt her face flush.  Yet when he did speak, all he said was, "Do you have all you need to care for him?"

"Not all I would like," she admitted with a short shake of her head, kneading her hand.  "His wounds are healing, but now his breathing is ill.  Lung-fever has carried off many who seemed saved.  I have no more meadowsweet; Rian was going to fetch sallow bark when Craec brought word of your coming.  Nor is there much left in my stores that strengthens the lungs."

"Have you gotten the sallow bark?"

"Not yet."

Coruwi took her hand.  "I will go fetch it now, and after supper, you can tell Eregai where he can find the herbs you require."

"Thank you," she murmured.  What would be best, at this season?  Bogbean from the lochan by the cairn; coltsfoot from the shingle strand where she had met Gwinnor--

Her breath caught as Coruwi's thumb pressed into the soreness of her hand.  "What is this?" he asked.

"A trifle."  She would have drawn it back, but his grasp, though light, was unyielding.  "One of the reivers kicked me.  It is mending."

"Not rightly."  His eyes, silverweed green-grey, were as searching as the fingertips he ran along and between the bones of her hand.  "You suffered no worse?"

Saelon shook her head.  Many times she had sought the cause of the pain, but the precise injury eluded her.  "I was fortun--ah!"

The Elf pursed his lips.  "Your pardon, but the trouble is deep and your hands are strong.  I cannot be delicate."

"If you believe you can set it to rights, do what you must."  She had inflicted pain enough on those under her hands.  Now her turn had come.  "I did not know you were a healer."

"Move your fingers," Coruwi asked, his over the painful place.  "I would not call myself one.  I have taken life too often, but many long-years on the marches teaches one how to succor the hurts of war.  How did your foe come to kick you here?  It seems a strange attack."  Setting his fingers carefully, he took a firm grasp on her second and third knuckles.

"I cut him."

He laughed--and pulled, with a swift strength that made her gasp, astonishment rather than pain.  "Gwinnor warned me of your merlin's temper.  Try the hand now.  You dealt the villain a shrewd blow, I trust?"

"Shrewd enough."  Cautiously, she clenched her fist and waggled her fingers, yet felt no more than a vague tenderness.  "This is wonderful!  What did you do?"

"Merely returned the joints to their proper places.  I would show you the trick," he said, smiling, "but I doubt you have that kind of strength.  At least you should not try when your hand is mending.  Have you or your folk any other hurts that have defied your skill?"

As if a cloud returned to cast its pall, Saelon sobered, thinking of Tearlag.  "Yes.  But I do not think you can aid her."  Like Urwen after the death of her husband, the serving woman's wounds were not of the body . . . and she shrunk even from men she knew well, hollow-eyed and listless.

Elves looked so young; from his comely face, Coruwi might have been of an age with Halpan.  Yet his gaze was old, old and unsurprised and grieved.  "Then let me fetch what Dírmaen needs and spare your niece the errand.  We can speak more of the evils you have suffered when I meet Maelchon and his wife."

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Notes

**"Men of Peace"** : in Scots Gaelic, the Fair Folk were traditionally called _Daoine Sìth_ , "Men of Peace," in hopes of them being so.

**Wood pease** : a vetch ( _Lathyrus montanus_ or _Orobus tuberosus_ ) whose sweet roots were chewed to deaden hunger.

**Febrifuge** : an herb or drug that treats fever.

**Gowan** (also ox-eye daisy; _Leucanthemum vulgare_ ): medicinally, this was used to treat lung complaints.

**Spearwort** ( _Ranunculus flammula_ ): an herb used to treat toothache and for blistering.

**Groundsel** ( _Senecio vulgaris_ ): an herb used to treat boils and inflammation.

**Sallow** ( _Salix_ sp.): the shrubbier types of willow, for instance, the pussy-willow; like meadowsweet, willow bark is rich in fever-reducing salicylates.

**Bloodwort** (also St. John's wort; _Hypericum perforatum_ or _pulchrum_ ): one of the most prized Highland simples for controlling bleeding and treating wounds.  When crushed, its flowers ooze a bright red fluid that can be used as a dye.

**_No mae_** : Sindarin, "be well."

**Gwaeron** : Sindarin, the month of March.

**Nórui** : Sindarin, the month of June.

**Silverweed** ( _Potentilla anserina_ ): a plant of dune grasslands with silver-green leaves, whose sweet roots were often chewed by children.


	19. Venturing Forth

_Men trust their ears less than their eyes._

\--Herodotus, _The Histories_

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"Are you mad?" Rekk goggled, beard bristling.

Sút shifted her hold on the helm in the crook of her arm, taking a surer grip.  "To come here?  Perhaps.  I desire to find out."

Leaning on his stout blackthorn stick, Veylin glanced towards Auð with reproach, but she appeared as astonished as the men preparing to leave for White Cliffs.  "You have some complaint, Sút?"

Of course she had some complaint.  Why else would a woman propose leaving the delf?

"Yes."  She was a stern figure in her hauberk of silvered steel, jet-black beard and hair severely braided, as if for war; a daughter of Regin's line, not to be trifled with.  "I was assured that the lands about these halls were peaceable and secure.  Now I hear of neighbors beset by brigands and searching Elves."

Veylin sighed before answering with equal formality.  "I explained, did I not, that the brigands were driven here from beyond the Lune, and have been slain?  And that the Elves come at the desire of the Lady of White Cliffs, in fulfillment of the bargain made between her and the Lord of Lindon?"

Her eyes were as black as her beard, scornful.  "Why then do you ride out armed for war?"

"To ensure the Elves' respect."

Sút scowled.  "Not because some brigands have escaped?"

"If so," Rekk scoffed, "they ran far from here.  I tell you I searched, and Nordri and others with me, and found no sign of the thieves."

"The mountains were deep in snow," Nordri pointed out, reasonably, "and Men are not hardy.  If any fled that way from Saelon's folk and the Men of the Star, they are dead."

"Yes, yes," Sút dismissed.  "I do not doubt the truth of what you say.  What troubles me is what is not said."

"Your kinsman cannot content you?"  Rekk flung a hand towards Aðal, who looked alarmed and dismayed.

She snorted.  "We are more nearly akin than Aðal and I."

"Enough!" Veylin declared, glaring at them all.  If Sút's doubts were serious enough to proclaim publicly, argument would not answer them.  He had been dubious when Auð proposed that her friend join them, fearing Sút would be dissatisfied without near kinsmen to assure her . . . but she was a woman of full age who had chosen not to wed, obliged to none.  Her parents had gone to Mahal, her brother was taken up with his demanding wife, and her skill with silver kept her very well.  Aðal was of her sept, true, but nowhere near such close kin to Regin, and decades her junior--to expect her to heed his advice was absurd.  "If all that will satisfy you is to judge for yourself, then come!  There will be Men larger than Hanadan and at least one Elf, but they are honorable folk and courteous.  I do not foresee strife.  Auð, will you join us as well?"

He was relieved when his sister drew back with a curt shake of her head, staring at Sút with narrow-eyed perplexity.  "No.  I have already met the Lady and her kinsmen, and would not delay you further."

Yet she did not say she was content, and she had not been able to satisfy her friend.  They would have to talk, when he returned.  He had not meant for his candor to be traded on.  "Thyrð, run and tell your brother to ready Sút's pony as well."

Outside, the morning was--for the moment, in this changeable season--fair, the few clouds scudding swiftly across the sky; even the ponies were brisk, trotting across turf where clinging raindrops glinted like adamant or citrine.  At the rear, Nordri and the two stonecarvers talked quietly of White Cliffs limestone and bringing more to Gunduzahar.

Veylin had intended to go to Habad-e-Mindon with only a few companions, a visit of courtesy, no more: to make Círdan's marchwarden known to Rekk and Nordri, and get news of Saelon and her folk.  When he spoke of his plan at supper, however, Aðal had asked if he and his friend could accompany them--there had been no time for Vígir to inspect the quarry during their earlier visit, and as they were contemplating using the stone in the baths and the gallery they would open on the second level . . . .

Was it mistrust that had driven Sút to join them, or self-indulgent curiosity, cloaked in the decency of doubt?  She was a venturesome woman; had always been, since she and Auð scamped together as girls.  Boldness was admirable, provided it settled into proper channels as a woman prepared to take up the duties of a wife and a mother, a weighty yet precious charge.

Duties Sút had declined to take up.  Why?  He did not know, having spent most of her marriageable years outside the mansion warring with Orcs or traveling to improve his skill.  Had she found a love and lost him in the war?  Set her heart on one who chose another?  Or refused all offers?  Surely she had had many.  Though independence was a fault, minor flaws did not ruin an otherwise excellent stone: Sút was handsome, the granddaughter of a king, and a talented silversmith.

Maybe, like himself, she had found her craft more attractive than her suitors.  Auð would know.

The little river ran swift and high with snowmelt, almost reaching the ponies' bellies, but the footing was good at the upper ford and they crossed without mishap, though Sút looked particularly grim.  Veylin took care to hide his smile.  If she desired a little adventure, she should find discomfort enough to content her today.

Wondering that they had seen neither guard nor watch, Veylin was reassured when Maelchon's second son popped out of the catkin-laded alders with a cheerful shout.  "Good day to you, Masters!  Have you come to see the Elves?"

"Greetings, Maon!  The Elves, and your folk.  Your parents are well, I trust?"

The boy sobered.  "Well enough.  Gran has died."

That would be Gràinne, Fransag's mother, the frail old woman who had been chary of Dwarves.  "I am sorry to hear of your loss," Veylin replied, bowing his head as he remembered the dreadful keening that came from the inner chamber of their blood-stained house.  A mother and a child; no wonder Fransag had been mad with grief.  "Has Fokel been found?"

Maon shook his head.

After so many days, the herdsman was almost certainly dead as well.  "So, how many Elves have come?"  Craec had spoken only of Coruwi, but if the marchwarden was alone, Saelon ought to stint Lindon's rent.

"Two," the boy said, before adding with a discriminating air, "These are wood-elves, not like Gwinnor, or the sea-elves that brought Saelon home from the Havens.  The chief of them is visiting our house with the Lady and Randir."

"The Rangers are still here?" Rekk asked.

"Randir is.  Faelnoth went to Srathen Brethil with Halpan and Partalan."

They had gone, despite the attack?  Veylin frowned.  "And Dírmaen?"

Maon shrugged.  "Ill, still."

"Many thanks for the news.  Would your parents welcome more guests?"

"You will always be welcome, Masters," the boy declared stoutly.  "If Guaire is there, remind him he is to take my place at midday!"

Veylin snorted and smiled.  "I will," he assured him, as he put his heels to his pony.  "Good day!"

A little further along the muddy river track, and up the high bank to Maelchon's yard.  "Da!  Da!" one of the children piped, running for the house, the rest scattering like startled grouse.  "Dwarves!  Dwarves have come!"

The door of the house was already opening, however, and the burly, black-bearded husbandman stepped out, scooping up the child--one of his daughters--and calling, "Welcome, Masters!  Will you come in for a bite and a sup?  The Lady is here, and we have another guest, who I am told you know, Master Veylin."

"Well met, Maelchon!  We are at your service," Veylin assured him.  "Would your guest be Coruwi, Lindon's marchwarden?"

Maelchon laughed, as his daughter laid her head on his shoulder.  "You Dwarves are great ones for news.  How did you know?  Did you speak with one of my sons, or Hanadan?"

Dismounting at the block, Veylin allowed, "Maon greeted us at the ford, yes . . . but word of Coruwi's coming had already reached us."

The husbandman shook his head wonderingly, but did not press.  "Come in!  Put you ponies in the fank, if you like."  Greeting each as they handed off their ponies to Thyrnir and came forward, the Man regarded Sút with interest.

"Here is one of our company you have not met yet," Veylin told him.  "Sút, a silversmith and kin of our king."

"At your service," Sút said stiffly, doffing her grey hood and bowing.

"At yours and your family's," Maelchon replied, bowing deeper still.  "We are honored by your visit."

Sút gazed up at him with narrowed eyes, as if seeking insincerity, but either the Man's plainness or the fetching blend of curiosity and shyness in his daughter's candid stare reassured her.  "Many in our company honor you for keeping your bargains, in evil times as well as prosperity.  It is good to know we have such neighbors."

"Oh, any man would do as much," Maelchon dismissed, going pink about the ears, and held open the door.  "Go in!  The Lady will be waiting."

Setting back his hood, Veylin stepped into the common room and bowed to his hostess, who murmured, "It is good to see you again, Master," as she pressed a brimming cup of ale into his hand.  After quaffing what threatened to spill, he moved aside to make way for the others.

If he had not seen the clotted gore himself, it would be difficult to envision the violence that had been committed here less than a fortnight ago.  All was clean, all was orderly; Saelon sat across the hearth in the place of honor, the impractical paleness of her gown denying any stain, while Coruwi rose to greet them and Randir brought another bench nearer the fire.  "I hope I see you well, Lady."

"Better, thank you."  She looked worn but at ease, her smile warm despite his gruffness.  "And you, Master?  I am sorry we had no time to talk when you were last here."

"I cannot complain."  Not after what she had suffered; not before so many.  "Greetings, Coruwi!"

The Elf had watched his meeting with Saelon with keen attention, and now bowed, hand at his breast.  " _Mae govannen_ , Veylin!  I am glad you have come, so we can hold council on how to deal with this disturbance.  Were your folk troubled by the outlaws?"

He shook his head.  "No.  We have just come from Sulûnduban."

"You saw no sign of the villains on your journey?"

"No."  They had crossed the mountains northwards, far from the ways between Srathen Brethil and Habad-e-Mindon . . . but he would not reveal his roads to the marchwarden without necessity.  "Have you come alone?"

Coruwi smiled.  "Again, no!  Eregai has gone to fetch herbs for the Lady; the rest of my foresters are on the hunt.  Will you introduce me to your companions?"

Rekk was brusque, Nordri reserved; Sút barely spoke, and Aðal and Vígir were hardly more forthcoming.  "Were you not in Mithlond with Veylin this autumn?" Coruwi asked, when Thyrnir was presented.

"You have mistaken me for my brother," Thyrnir told him with a fine note of coolness, and drank his ale.

"Your pardon!" the Elf asked, still smiling.  "The striking color of your beard deluded me.  But perhaps it is not uncommon among Firebeards."

"Not uncommon, no."

They were spared an awkward silence by Fransag coming around with buttered bannock--not the equal of Saelon's, but welcome after their ride.  Then Randir asked Rekk if he had put out patrols, and Nordri wondered whether Maelchon's troubles would set back spring planting, and conversation became more natural.

Saelon looked from the empty place on her left, presumably vacated by Randir or their host, to him.  "Will you join us, Master?  And you, Master Sút?  I am afraid that I do not remember you, if you came to our relief."

Veylin paused and glanced at Sút, uncertain if she would like being so near the Elf, but she inclined her head and went around the end of the long hearth that took up the center of the floor.  "Thank you, Lady; no, I remained in Gunduzahar, where I met your young kinsman Hanadan."

"Ah," Saelon murmured, with a hesitant smile.  "He gave no grounds for complaint, I hope."

"Not that I saw," Sút assured the woman of Men, sitting down beside her and taking a draught of ale.

Brows knit in puzzlement, Veylin followed after.  Was this why Sút had come, to meet Saelon?  Certainly the Dúnadaneth was an oddity; the tales told of her might enflame anyone's curiosity.  Though Auð ought have been able to satisfy her, having met the woman of Men thrice.

"Hanadan has been to your halls?" Coruwi marveled.

Sút wiped froth from her whiskers.  "He is the one who brought us news of the attack.  You did not know?"

"He told me that he fetched Dwarves," the Elf confessed.  "I thought some of your folk were at the workings in the other cliff.  Was I told true, that you dwell three leagues hence?"

"About that," Veylin allowed, settling alongside Sút.  He was pleased to hear the boy had guarded his tongue, for all his fascination with Elves.

"Have you ever heard the like?" Sút wondered.

"No, I have not . . . but I know little of the children of Men."  Coruwi turned to Saelon.  "Is he not young for such a feat, Lady?"

"Too young!" she agreed, yet Veylin thought pride was mingled with her resigned despair.  "Who could have imagined he would attempt such a thing?  He yearns to be a Ranger.  If," she sighed, shaking her head, "he does not break his neck or drown in a bog, he may make a good one."

Veylin drank, thinking of the seven-rayed star of silver in his strongbox, which the boy's uncle had traded for a chance to reclaim his home.  "Halpan has gone to Srathen Brethil and left Randir to guard you?"

The Ranger glanced their way, ear still cocked to Rekk's low rumble.  "Randir stays for Dírmaen, who is his friend," Saelon explained.  "He has kindly taken a share of the watch, but I do not expect him to stay once Dírmaen's fate is decided.  This country is not the Rangers' charge; we are not in Arnor."

"It is only a part of my charge, Lady," Coruwi warned.  "I cannot stay, and even if I set a man here, I do not think--" the Elf looked past her, at Veylin, the smoothness of his face as inscrutable as any beard "--he would always be welcome.  Surely the Dwarves--     "

Before Veylin could speak, Saelon said, most decidedly, "I am sure Veylin and his folk will keep close watch as they go about their business and send word of anything untoward, but it is not their duty to defend us.  Thank you both, for your concern!  Gaernath will patrol, as Dírmaen used to, and the lads and herdsmen keep a sharp eye out, so we will be as well-guarded as ever we were at Srathen Brethil."

How was he to find fault with that, when she saved him from seeming cold to their plight?  Dwarves were not sell-swords; make the swords, yes, and sell them into the hands that would use them, but they did not fight to profit others.  Though he was fond of Saelon, perhaps more than was right, even he would grudge time taken from his gems . . . and none of the others were in her debt.

He honored her resolve not to put her folk under obligation to strangers, and men of alien race, but his heart misgave him.  She did not have the menfolk she deserved.

The party broke up soon after: Saelon pled her duty to the invalid Dírmaen, while Nordri and the stonecarvers excused themselves to visit the quarry; Coruwi asked Randir to show him where they had found the brigands in the oakwood, and the Ranger civilly asked Rekk to accompany them, so they might have the benefit of his views.  They were all to meet again at the cliff-hall for a late dinner, but Veylin gladly accepted Randir's charge to see Saelon safely home, no matter how earnestly the Elf assured them there were no ruffians within two leagues, to his certain knowledge.  He had long been wishing to speak to her, and this seemed his best chance to do so.

Still, it was hard to know how to begin and even after reaching the river track they went along in companionable silence for half a dozen chains, Saelon walking by his pony's side while Thyrnir and Sút rode a little way behind.  The questions that had gnawed at him since that bloody day almost a fortnight ago could not be decently asked . . . yet her manner seemed unchanged, which was itself a kind of answer.  "Truly," he hazarded, as she paused to finger the buds of some twigs along the path, "you will be easy in your mind, with only Gaernath to protect you?"

That earned him a soft snort and one of her wry smiles.  "I do not think I have been easy in my mind since Gaernath found you on the bog-moor."

Veylin frowned at this levity, hoping it was mere levity.  "Saelon--"

"Do not look so grim!" she beseeched.  "I am sick of fear.  Tell me some good news!  You have many new faces in your following, I hear," she carried on, resolutely pleasant.

"Not very many."  He regarded her dubiously, not liking this half-false note.  She had endured so much, and was not Khazâd.  How much more could she bear?  "Sút and Vígir you have met; Bersi has taken on three miners, Nordri two prentices, and a plumber will be joining us--"

"What is a plumber?"

That flash of curiosity rang true.  "A worker of lead.  Yet Vitnir has left us, with Skani and Ketli, Siggr and Narfi."

Pursing her lips, she allowed, "Skani I will miss.  Will you come to help us celebrate Tuilérë?"

Now it was his turn to snort.  "Do you have so much food left in store that you need more guests to eat it?"

"There are lambs and calves to cull," she maintained.  "Should we brine such fine flesh?  Besides, with Partalan gone, we will have little music without you."

Veylin sighed; how could one counter such arguments?  "Your generosity begins to oppress, Saelon.  Will you not allow me to give in return?"

"You are ahead by two turns."

"I did not come here today on your behalf, but because it would be impolitic to shun Coruwi when I desire to strike a bargain with his lord.  What have I given, that you have not already repaid?"

She held up a thumb to start her count.  "You brought your folk to our aid."

This was absurd, like selling turned on its head.  "You and the Rangers left us nothing to do, and the meals alone were worth the journey.  There was no need to give beeves as well."

"We did not know how many more reivers might remain, when you arrived, and all my own men were still astray.  A stirk is nothing beside the relief I felt when I saw you at the door.  You must allow me to show my gratitude in some way, Veylin."

They were much the same height, when he was mounted; the depth of feeling beneath the surface aggravation in her eyes brought a discomfited warmth to his cheeks.  "What else have I given?" he challenged.  "I have not seen you this half a year."

"Do not tell me," she drawled, voice dry, "that that great jewel did not even our accounts."

This came perilously close to confession, for he did not think she knew--precisely--what he had gained by her timely news of the storm-tide.  Nor would he speak too freely before Sút.  "I must."

She was a shrewd woman: though she regarded him narrowly, she said nothing for many paces, and then only, "You will tell me when I draw near the end of my credit, or ask too much?"

"On my oath," Veylin assured her solemnly.

"Very well.  Yet I do not withdraw the invitation.  We may not have required your aid against the reivers, but some help making merry would not go amiss."

"Then I will come, and encourage the others."  If he could not be of use in one way, he would try another.  Twisting in the saddle to look back at his nephew, he called, "Thyrnir!  Will you bring your fiddle?  These folk crave music."

Thyrnir bowed his head to Saelon with a smile.  "If my master will give me leave, I will gladly trade tunes for a plate of lamb and cup of mead."

"Tell Bersa," Saelon charged, with a glint in her eye, "that I have a little honey to spare this year, if he can be troubled to come and haggle for it.  I will even take coin, if he has nothing better to offer."

"What could be better than coin?" Thyrnir wondered.

"Whatever was in the goose pie he served last spring, when I dined with you.  Trubs, I think he called them."

Veylin chuffed and shook his head.  "Have you not had enough of strife, Saelon?"

Her lips quirked into a smile.  "He is diverting.  Master Sút, I hope you will come as well."

With some trepidation, Veylin watched Sút closely, but she merely half-bowed in the saddle.  "I thank you, Lady.  Let me try your much-praised hospitality, and I will consider."

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Notes

**Citrine** : a rare, pale yellow to brownish variety of quartz.

**Chain** : a surveyor's unit of measure, originally a literal chain, 22 yards (20.1m) long; there are ten chains in a furlong.  A dwarven chain may be different from the Mannish one, since the length of a furrow is not a meaningful distance for them.

**Brine** : to soak in a salt solution; one way to preserve meat.

**Trubs** : truffles.


	20. The Cunning of Women

_The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it._

\--Laurence Sterne, _Tristram Shandy_

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Auð picked at the hash on her supper plate.  Three hours on the way, at least; the same back . . . how long they would remain at White Cliffs was incalculable.  They would have stayed for dinner, unless the Elves were offensive; Vígir must view the cuttings.  Otherwise, she did not know what might occupy them.  Contention could delay rather than hasten their departure, but then so might courtesy.  Or brigands.

Whatever had possessed Sút to go off with them?  If she did doubt Veylin's assurances, it was rank foolhardiness.  It had taken Auð days to pry more than Veylin would tell from the rest of her menfolk, and what she got was as grim as her brother's stark sketch.  Biddable Thyrnir bluntly refused to speak of such things to his mother; Thyrð was disgruntled that he had been kept from the ravaged house, grumbling that he was no longer a child.  When she and Sút asked Hlin what Bersi had revealed, the leatherworker could offer no more than common report, for her husband had remained at the cliff-hall, where the brigands never came.

So Auð had asked Rekk to confer with her regarding the boys and unlocked his tongue with a judicious measure of her carefully hoarded triple-distilled liquor.  She was uncertain of the worth of what she got, however, for he seemed to take a sinister relish the telling, lingering on the horrors.  The worst kind of Men, he had rumbled ominously, eyes gleaming darkly in the lamplight; so like Orcs as to make no difference.  Other Men not only cast them out of their communities, but hunted them like beasts if they had the strength.  Killers of their own kind, violators of women, shameless thieves--

Just thinking of it made Auð want to check the locks on all the doors and take up her axe, even though the malefactors were only Men, weak and weedy.  The dangers of so small and isolated a delf were no longer potential; evil had been--might still be--lurking outside, waiting to take a Dwarf unawares.  Hlin could afford to be placid, for her men labored in the stone beneath them; but Thyrnir must go out for timber, Thyrð and Veylin for gems . . . .  How were the fears that now gnawed at her to be laid?

Perhaps Sút was not so foolish, after all.  A flesh-and-blood foe could be hewn down, unlike doubt.

"More ale, Mother?" Thyrð asked solicitously, pitcher poised, breaking into her dour thoughts.

"No, th--"

"I told you," she heard Veylin pronounce, from the direction of the great doors, "that we would be home in time for supper."

Twisting around, Auð saw her brother several paces inside the hall, looking self-satisfied, helm already tucked under his elbow, as Sút unbuckled hers.  Beside them, Rekk shrugged.

"What is this?"  Bersa glanced up from his laden fork.  "Did that Lady stint you?"

Nordri, who came through the doors in time to hear this, paffed and rolled his eyes, walking over to join them at table.  "Far from it, though I would not mind a glass of ale."

"Nor I," Sút agreed.

"Is there wine on the table?" Veylin wondered.  "Thyrð, go and help your brother with the ponies."

"No wine," Bersi replied, as Neðan, the younger of Nordri's new prentices hastened to fetch more glasses from the pantry.  "How was your journey?"

Veylin set his helm on the table and took Thyrð's place beside her, rubbing at his lame knee.  "Surprisingly pleasant, for Súlimë.  Lindon's marchwarden was civil, and the Lady has invited us to feast on lamb and veal with them on Spring Day."

Nyr laughed.  "One might almost hope the Men were frighted more often, when they are so keen for our company.  But is it not prodigal for them to spend their stock this way?"

"Less than you think," Prut replied, with his jaded air of authority.  "They kill some of the young to take more milk from their beasts."

Bersi gazed on the crabbed Longbeard.  "Is that the reason?  I thought it was mere greed, after the dearth of winter."

"Well, I will not scorn veal, even if it is slaughtered to make more cheese," Grani declared.

Veal.  Auð could count the number of times she had tasted veal on one hand, and even lamb was a rarity in Sulûnduban.  The lambs Bersi and Grani got from Saelon in trade last spring had been a toothsome change from mutton and beef.  "Is the Lady willing to trade such delicacies?"

Sút, taking a seat across the table near Hlin, slid a sly glance towards Bersa.  "She says she has honey on offer, and is interested in truffles."

"Truffles would be wasted on her," the stout cook muttered, digging into the heap of hash that remained on his plate.

"Is that why you put so many in the goose-pie, when she came to dine?" Barði gibed, grinning at his uncle.

Leaving his brother and son to chaff each other, Bersi asked Sút, "How did you find the Men?"

"Pleasant enough, once one grows accustomed to their strange appearance," she answered.  "But shockingly destitute!  The only silver I saw was a simple little ring-brooch on the Lady's niece."

Gamal, sitting between his father and Nordri's folk, smiled knowingly.  "The Lady has a very pretty piece of silver.  Did she not wear it for you?"

The sea-jewel!  "It was not stolen, I hope," Auð exclaimed.

"No, no," Veylin assured her, interrupting himself with, "Why, many thanks, Neðan," as Nordri's young cousin set down a tray of glasses and passed him a goblet of wine.  "For those of you little acquainted with the Lady Saelon," he continued after taking a draught, "she favors plainness, save on high occasions, on account of her craft."

"What is her craft?" asked Balnar, the elder of Nordri's prentices.

"She is a master of herb and root, especially those that heal."

"So she follows the Earth-Queen?"  Prut shoved his empty glass towards Neðan.  "More here too, lad, while you are at it."

"She keeps closer to the Lord of Waters, from what I have seen," Rekk observed, taking a glass and drinking deep.

Bersi brought this touchy turn of conversation to an end with, "Healing--how fares Dírmaen?  Has the Lady saved him?"

Auð watched her brother closely, for there was no friendship between him and the Man of the Star who vexed Saelon.  But Veylin seemed indifferent.  "From his wounds, yes.  Though he now has some weakness of the lungs.  Coruwi, who has a liking for the Man, sent the forester who came with him to fetch some herb beyond the Lady's present reach."

"Enough of the Men!" Haki said.  "We know them well, and can hear more on Spring Day.  Tell us of this Elf who comes from the Shipwright.  What is he like, and will he trouble us?"

Long they sat over ale and their pudding, listening attentively to all Veylin and the others could tell of the marchwarden and his companion, and weighing to what extent it was practical to conceal their number and works.  Though Coruwi had made it plain that he knew where the delf was sited, the doors should still be hidden . . . and if their spells were proof against so cunning a Noldo as Gwinnor, how could a Wood-elf gain entry?  The Elves had seen the quarry at White Cliffs and the stumps in the oakwood, yet the mine beneath their feet could not be spied out.  Some of the newcomers cast sidelong, expectant glances towards Veylin, but he said nothing of his lodes and those senior among the company respected his silence.

Her brother had founded these halls, Auð knew, to further his search for gems where few Dwarves had ventured before.  There were riches here . . . but they were not easily won, and Veylin's patience had been sorely tried, again and again: by grievous wounds, the jealous _mírdan_ , and the call of his duties as chieftain.  Did he mean to content himself with his hoard of fire opal and give over prospecting until he reached a settlement with Círdan, or would he venture forth as soon as it seemed likely these Elves had withdrawn back to their usual bounds?

His judicious attentiveness, as he listened to the views of all who desired to speak, gave no glimpse of his own interests.

In the end it was decided that they would stand on their rights and go about their work regardless of the Elves.  They were here and meant to remain.  Their claims were just; to skulk suggested otherwise.  Due attention must be paid to guarding the approaches to the doors, but it was nonsensical to spend much effort concealing what might be betrayed by the indiscretion of a child of Men and the ways beaten into the earth by the hooves of their own beasts.

The conference broke up, and the prentices began to clear the table.  As Sút rose, Auð asked, "Would you like help disarming?"

Her friend smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling.  "I would not mind it."

"So," Auð said as they followed Nordri's party through the arch and down the winding stair, "tell me of White Cliffs.  Did you see the hall?"

"Yes.  Not that I would call it a hall," Sút qualified.  "A few chambers, no more.  Your suite is nearly as large."

Looking back over his shoulder, Nyr came to the defense of his work.  "It is a hall by Men's standards.  Remember, it was not delved as a permanent home, but as a shelter against winter storms."

"Yet still they are there."

"Not all."

"All except Maelchon, whose house you also built," Sút pointed out.  "What do Men do for shelter, when they do not have Dwarves for neighbors?"

"Build their own . . . though not very well, for the most part, I grant you."  The young stonemason shrugged.  "These Men are accustomed to work with wood, but there is less of that here than in Srathen Brethil and the Elves will allow them only one tree a year for timber.  That is why Maelchon turned to us.  To our advantage--his corn is good, and saves us the labor of bringing more over the mountains."

"One tree?  Who can build a house from one tree?" Sút scoffed.

"Who would build their home from wood?" Auð went further.  "Is it not like living in a box?"

Nyr laughed.  "The Elves certainly meant to balk the Men, but there is no shortage of stone and Grani can frame a stout roof from a single tree, if it is large.  Wood and thatch keep out the weather well enough, if they do not fall into disrepair.  Against foes . . . ."  He shrugged again.

They had reached the bottom of the stair, and their ways parted.  "Are all Men so unguarded?" Sút asked soberly.

Nyr paused, one hand on the baluster's brass finial, to consider.  "Most that I have seen, here in the west.  Usually they rely on numbers for protection: where there are many eyes, warning is soon given.  But the Lady's folk are few, a remnant driven from their homes; which," he observed, "is why they are so poor, though no Man is rich.  Still, they do not shun work, and their fortunes are already much improved from when I first saw them.  If they continue as they are going, in ten years we might get most of our food from them."

"If their fortunes are much improved," Sút said for Auð's ears alone, as they went down the corridor to her chambers, "I cannot imagine how they lived before."

"How destitute are they?" Auð asked, once the door was shut behind them, thinking of the Lady's reworked gown and Hanadan's tattered hems.

There had not been time to delve Sút rooms or a workshop to her taste, and the parlour of the guest suite was furnished partly with the silversmith's own effects and partly with the plain but serviceable pieces Grani had knocked together in the delf's early days.  The sideboard was one of the latter, and Sút dumped her helm on it with little care for the already dunted finish.  "Well, _I_ would not care to live without plumbing or a table better than boards laid on trestles, but they seem not to feel the lack.  Most of them go barefoot through the mire of the paths and the muck of their beasts."  Shaking her head, she began unbuckling her axe-belt.  "And the only one, save the Ranger, armed with more than a scrap of iron on the end of a stick had a child's soft curls on his chin."

"The red-headed one?"

"You would remember that," Sút chuffed

Auð drew a hand down her fiery beard.  "How could I forget the only tolerable feature on such a gawky creature?  Gaernath is the youth's name, and he is kin to Saelon, though his father was not of the West-Men."

Sút cast her axe onto the arming chest that sat across from the hearth.  "I do not understand this thing about some Men having beards--and only the men--and some not.  Maelchon's is respectable, but aside from Gaernath, only the ancient one and one of the lesser Men have any to speak of.  There are four other Men, none Dúnedain, and their faces are nearly as naked as the Elves'."

"Thekk once told me," Auð confided, "that some Men shave their beards, to look more like Elves."

"Painting a board may make it look more like marble," Sút declared scornfully, "but who would be deceived?  Come, be useful as you promised and help me get out of this hauberk with some grace."

Auð chuckled.  "Without snagging your hair on the rivets, you mean?"  Stepping forward, she hoisted the weighty mailcoat's patterned black and silver skirts so Sút could bend and shake it off.

"How do the men do it?" came a part-muffled grumble from within the bunched fabric of closely meshed steel rings.

"Practice, I suppose."  When the silversmith emerged, red-faced and disheveled, Auð asked, "So Elves are very different from Men?"

Sút lifted her hauberk and shook it out, the rings chiming pleasantly.  Draping it over the back of the nearer chair, she pursed her lips and examined it closely, lightly rubbing a soiled place with her thumb.  "Not to look at, from a distance.  Both are spindly and over-tall, with knobby naked chins.  Yet there is a quality about the Elves, like true-silver beside the common sort."

While Sút stripped off her quilted sable gambeson, Auð went to the hearth to light the fire.  "How much of a threat are they?"

"The Elves?"

Auð glanced back over her shoulder.  "Who else?  Or were you speaking lightly when you scorned the Men?"

"No.  They seem inoffensive creatures: well-disposed, even familiar, yet without presumption.  The boy was a fair example."

"That was what I saw in those who have visited here.  But then the Lady is said to be exceptionally friendly to Dwarves."

Sút grunted, and sat down to take off her boots.  "To one Dwarf, at any rate."

To Veylin, she meant.  Auð set coal atop the crackling kindling.  "How exceptionally?"

Perhaps the edge on her voice had been sharper than she meant--or the situation graver than she feared--for her friend did not answer promptly.  "Nothing that would be improper," Sút allowed, though her tone was grudging, "from what I saw . . . if the Lady were Khazâd."

Auð turned and fixed her with her eye, beard bristling.  "Do you say--"

"No!  That is not what I meant!" Sút hastened to protest, going crimson, a boot in her hand.  "They are like--" she cast about "--Lukla and Fagr.  Yet how can there be such confidence between them, when she is of alien race?"

That was reassuring, but only somewhat.  Lukla, a bachelor locksmith, and Fagr, a spinster enameller, were such fast friends most wondered they had never wed, even though he was three decades her junior.  "She found him, broken and dying, and mended him, without thought of reward."

"She might have made a better job of it," Sút muttered, yanking off the other boot and scowling at the mud-crusted leather, "if she had considered compensation.  Veylin's part I can grasp," she allowed.  "He would repay magnanimity with magnanimity, and if he has a flaw, it is his interest in strangeness, like those wispy Elvish designs he toys with.  Obligation and curiosity mingled incline one to give and take.  But why should the Lady favor him with her trust?"

Half a year ago, Auð had put almost that exact question to her brother.  Taking a seat on the nearer footstool, she considered her reply carefully.  "Veylin--and Thyrnir--tell me that relations between men and women among Men are very different from ours.  What," she asked, careful not to lead the answer, "did you see?"

"Aside from every woman among them, including one who will be a mother shortly?"

Auð goggled.

Nodding affirmation, Sút went on, "Girl-children younger than Hanadan ran outside unwatched, and the gravid woman sat at table with us all, including the Elves.  Indeed," she drawled, "she seemed quite taken with the Elves."

Surely Sút did not mean--  To admire another--a man of other race!--while the life created in loving collaboration with your spouse took shape within your womb . . . .  "Her husband was not jealous?"

"Perhaps.  He drank much and had a sullen set to his mouth, but watched Gaernath more than the Elves."

Auð scowled.  "I have been told that Men dominate their women.  Beat them if they are displeased, while the women are weak and untrained in arms, so any contest is uneven."  There was too much she did not know: how was she to understand this?  What was the character of the Men she had not seen?  If women of Men, even only a few, behaved so outrageously, Veylin and Thyrnir may have seen deserved retribution.

Sút raised her eyebrows and shrugged.  "If so, Murdag may rue her indiscretion; but I saw nothing of the kind.  Their women are smaller and slighter than the men, yes; though most of the men seem equally innocent of arms.  As I said, only the Ranger and Gaernath bore swords.  There is a fine troll-spear hung on the wall of what they call the hall--a memento of the fiend-slaying and memorial for their slain huntsman, who lies beside his kin in Srathen Brethil.  Otherwise, I saw nothing beyond a few crude hunting weapons."  Having taken off her socks, she stretched her feet towards the fire and wiggled her freed toes.  "The Elves had little more, although their spears and bows were finer.  So, to answer your question, no, I do not think the Elves much threat, not unless they come in force."

Unconvinced, Auð drew on her beard.  "And what would prevent that?"

Her friend chuckled.  "Caution is good, but this is too much, truly!  The Elves are no happier with monsters and brigands on their marches than the rest of us, but are too few to see to their borders.  How else did the Men establish themselves here, or our men?  Why would the Shipwright's marchwarden be amiable, if we were not useful to them?"

"I do not know," Auð muttered, mistrusting her own hope.

Sút had that daring glint of mischief in her eye.  "Well, the Elves will be gone by Tuilérë.  If you have ever fancied to see Men for yourself, in their own homes, come to the Spring feast!  Most of our men will go--we will probably outnumber the Men, if you do not count their children--so the risk, if any, will be slight."

"You are going?"

"For veal and lamb?  I am seriously tempted.  And there will be trading, in a small way.  Surely the Lady can see that it is not right for her niece to wear finer brooches than she."  Sút smirked.  "If Bersa has gotten too fat to go so far, I might try for the honey myself and wring a premium from him later, when the larder is not newly stocked.  Also, if there is honey, there must be wax; one cannot have too much of that."

Not for the complex castings her friend favored.  Auð chewed on the fringe of her whiskers.  Saelon had invited her to come to White Cliffs, to see their woolens--but she had said she could not.  "Tell me more, and I will consider it.  I make no promises!" she insisted, as glee she had not seen since their hoyden youth flashed across Sút's face.

"Of course not."  Sút tucked her grin away, but the gleam, a hint of impetuous silver, lingered in her dark eyes.  "What else do you wish to know?"

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Notes

**Cunning** : while this now usually has the meaning of artful deceit and Tolkien made good use of its older connotations of trained skill and the craft of magic in reference to Saruman, the word originally derives from "to know," preserved in the Scots "ken" (D'ye ken John Peel?).

**Hash** : a dish of finely chopped reheated meat and, often, potatoes; the word is akin to Germanic _hache_ , "battle-axe."  Like truffles, one suspects this might be a Dwarvish specialty.

**Earth-Queen** : Kementári, one of the names of Yavanna, Aulë's spouse.  Given the couple's discussions after the making of the Dwarves ( _The Silmarillion_ , "Of Aulë and Yavanna"), one suspects Dwarves are ambivalent regarding her--she seems very much a step-mother.

**Pudding** : used here in the sense of the dessert course.

**Baluster** : a pillar supporting a handrail.

**Finial** : a crowning architectural ornament, such as a decorative knob.

**Trestles** : a horizontal bar supported by two pairs of legs; modern sawhorses are essentially trestles.  Trestle tables were common in the medieval period, particularly in hall; many smaller homes, like Maelchon's, had no tables at all.  Trestle tables were much like modern folding tables: easily set up for special occasions, and put out of the way again afterwards.

**Muck** : soft wet manure.

**"on the rivets"** : in the best chainmail, each ring was individually welded and riveted closed, for greater strength.

**Gambeson** : a heavy leather or cloth tunic worn beneath armor, particularly mail.  Mail of any type--chain, ring, or scale--only prevents weapons from cutting or piercing the wearer.  It does not absorb the impact of the blow, so padding is desirable.

**Castings** : in most parts of the world, the traditional way to make molds for metalcasting was the lost wax technique.  The desired shape was modelled in wax, then encased in clay to make the mold, leaving holes to pour in the metal and vent trapped air.  Before use, the mold was heated and the liquid wax poured out.


	21. A Taste of the Sea

_We must take the current when it serves,  
_ _Or lose our ventures._

\--William Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_ IV, iii

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"This is your fault," Thyrð muttered, very low, as they strapped the snugly jacketed bolts of linen to the stolidest of Veylin's packponies.

Taken aback by the injustice, Thyrnir frowned at his brother across the beast's shaggy rump.  "My fault?  How?"  By his reckoning, Sút was to blame--but one could hardly say so.  Not to Mother, at any rate.

"You are the elder; the head of the family, since Father went to Mahal.  If you had opposed this--"

Thyrnir snorted.  Perhaps--perhaps--if he were wed and had provided her with a brace of clever-fingered grandchildren, Mother might give weight to his counsel.  "Ten years is not much advantage.  Why didn't you give me clearer signs of your disapproval?  Together we might have had some effect."

Heaving the last bolt onto the packframe with a sullen set to his mouth, Thyrð grumbled, "I thought our uncles would dissuade her."

"You know her opinion of Rekk."  Low, save in matters of war and water, and even he had to allow there could be little peril in traveling a few hours across country thrice-scoured, by Dwarves, Elves, and Men, for any trace of foes.  Or danger from the folk at White Cliffs, now that Partalan was in Srathen Brethil.  "And Veylin will countenance anything that settles her mind.  Anyway, where is the harm?  Surely you do not think any ill will befall her."

"It is not right that she should have to go abroad, to be easy in her mind.  Or to trade."

Thyrnir sighed as he tied off the final thong.  No, it was not.  If Father still lived, she would not have felt the need.  "She ought not to be here at all, but came in Father's place, for our sakes, to see us advantageously established."

Thyrð scowled.  "We are not children," he asserted, abhorring anything that suggested he was still tender.  "Nor are we prenticed to strangers, who might misuse us.  Does she trust none of us?"

"Can you blame her for doubt, after losing Father?  Come," Thyrnir said in his most mollifying tone, for Thyrð had their mother's temper, "one visit should reassure her, and satisfy what curiosity she has.  You will just have to be more moderate in your thirst this visit."

His brother's red-gold brows drew lower still.  "Do you say I have been drunk?"

"I say you drink more when among the Men than under Mother's eye."

"And you do not?"

Now that was a fair return.  Such liberties were one of the pleasures of White Cliffs.  "We will both have to be more on our guard, then."  As much for Mother's peace of mind as for her safety.

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"What," Auð asked, frowning at the long gouges that ran across the slope rising on their left hand, "is that?"  Very unnatural it looked, as if someone had raked a comb across the earth, snatching a patch bald, down to the pale nakedness of the soil.

Although many of the men had been in jovial mood the whole way from Gunduzahar, singing as though the ale-barrels had already been broached, she was startled by Nordri's glad shout.  "Ha!"

"A good sign!" Grani called back, grinning fit to split his beard.

Riding beside her on the path along the strong-flowing Fearna, Veylin nodded, stroking his beard with satisfaction.  "A ploughed field," he explained.  "Maelchon has broken fresh ground for barley."

Broken: that seemed a fitting word.  "Why?" Sút beat her to the question.  "Was there something wrong with what he already had?"

Auð snuck a sidelong glance at her brother: he was out of humor with Sút for, as he had put it during their terse discussion regarding her accompanying him to White Cliffs, playing on her uncertainties to gain herself a companion.  Veylin had not opposed her coming--could not, without casting his own repeated assurances into doubt--but he did not answer the silversmith's question.  Perhaps he was jealous of Sút's ability to persuade her.

"They would hardly ask us to help them eat up their corn if there was," the mason assured her friend.  "No, more ploughland means more grain, and since they already grow enough for their own needs, this can only mean more for us.  Maelchon chafes under his debt to Grani and myself, no doubt."

"Or one of the other Men covets a house of their own.  Artan has two sons already, and his grandfather with him," Nyr reflected.  "Doubtless his wife also finds their chamber cramped."

The carpenter, who would also benefit from any such construction, scratched his chin through his golden curls.  "Artan is a cottar, is he not?  How would he pay for even a small house?"

Sút stared at them, raven brows knitted.  "Surely he is paid for his work."

"Not much," Grani sighed.  "Little more than his family's keep, I believe."

"Who employs him?  Maelchon?"

This seemed to require some consideration.  "I do not think so," Nordri finally hazarded.  "He works with him, often enough, in the fields, but I believe Artan and his brother are the Lady's men."

"So her generosity is only for strangers?" Sút sniffed.

That was no way to reconcile Veylin.  "If Artan has no complaint, what business is it of ours?  They came here with no more than the clothes on their backs; she fed and housed them.  Such a debt must be repaid."

"I thought you--" Sút's sly gaze included Nordri "--housed them."

"My debt was to Saelon, and those at White Cliffs honor that she spent her credit on their behalf.  Those who did not," Veylin rumbled ominously, "have sought their fortunes elsewhere."

"Good luck to them."  Prut had hung on the edge of their group rather than ride with the other hirelings and prentices, who held no stake in Gunduzahar, and his voice was like flint.  "A dry bed and a full belly are not easy to come by among strangers, and Men do not acknowledge kinship they cannot reckon.  I have seen many Men, on both sides of the Misty Mountains, who would gladly trade places with any of the Lady's bondsmen.  Often their lords treat them little better than the beasts they tend."

Auð eyed the blue-hooded Longbeard thoughtfully.  Although his presumption was irritating, eighty years of homeless wandering had given him a broad knowledge of the world beyond the delf.  "What makes the difference between lords and common Men?  Breeding?  Birth?  Wealth?"

"They say it is nobility of blood, but in truth it is might--which they use to extort goods and labor from others."

"How, then, do you explain the Lady of White Cliffs?" Sút challenged.  "She is a slip of a thing and bears no weapon, yet does not lack authority."

"I have not yet seen her," Prut confessed, reluctantly, "and have never heard of such a thing.  It is unnatural; I cannot say."  The look he gave Sút suggested she was unnatural as well.

Nordri laughed, saving the situation from rancor.  "From what I have seen, it is mostly a matter of wit . . . and courage, which the Lady has in abundance.  Most Men do well enough, plodding along their furrows or ambling after their beasts, but when hardship comes upon them they are bewildered and look to those wise enough to guide them.  That is why Maelchon defers to Saelon, certainly: he has greater confidence in her judgment than his own, save in matters of husbandry."

Rekk snorted.  "Why do you think Halpan has gone back to Srathen Brethil?"

"And Dírmaen left?" Nyr added, with a grin.

"Aye, they are not so shrewd as she," his father agreed, with a knowing air.  "But Dírmaen has come back again.  I should not be surprised if there was more between those two than meets the eye.  The Man of the Star is not blind."

"They are incompatible," Veylin said, with the authority of close acquaintance.  "Lye-metal and water.  Steel and flint.  He vexes her."

"That does not bode well for his recovery," Nyr observed, the set of his whiskers betraying the smirk behind his somber tone.

"If she slew troublesome patients," Rekk pointed out, arching a droll brow at Veylin, "none of us would be here.  Her pride in her skill will save the Ranger, even if she hates him."

"If she hated him," Thyrnir said, low, from his place half a pony length behind Auð, "she would have killed him outright, as she did the brigand.  But you saw little of Dírmaen that day: his wounds were very grave."

"A florin says he sits at table with us," Rekk dismissed.

Auð watched as her son weighed this: a florin was no small sum for a prentice, and both had been at White Cliffs only nine days ago, so their knowledge should be equal.  "Dúnedain are hardier than other Men," Thyrnir allowed, "but no match for a Dwarf.  I will see your florin."

High above them, where the limestone of the cliffs began to show, there was a shout, and a for a moment Auð feared Thyrnir had lost his bet, for at this distance the dark-haired Man who waved in greeting looked much like Dírmaen.  Yet as they returned the salutation, Nordri said, sounding amused, "Well, there is a Ranger who does not quarrel with the Lady."

"Randir is a decent fellow--" Veylin began . . . but did not finish, for several people pelted madly onto the track ahead, rushing towards them with shrill cries.  Auð pulled her pony up short; ahead, Sút's jibbed, fouling Rekk's dun, which squealed and snapped at the offending beast.  "Welcome!  Welcome!" the leader of the assault shouted gleefully.

Auð recognized Hanadan even as Rekk shouted for order in a battle voice and Veylin gave a great huff, shaking his head at the wrangle.  Children: four children, in tearing high spirits, the two littlest giggling at Rekk's roar.  A black-haired child only a bit shorter than Hanadan snatched the smallest out of the path and waved Nordri and Sút to ride through, so the quarreling ponies could be parted.

"This is a welcome indeed," Veylin rumbled, gazing down on the young Dúnedain, who had the grace to look somewhat abashed.

The next-smallest, who wore a gown rather than breeks--Auð supposed it must be a girl--came up to him with a wide smile on her bare, red-cheeked face.  "Happy Spring Day, Master Veylin," she piped, holding up an untidy fistful of flowers.

"And the same to you, Ros," Veylin returned, gentling his tone as he reached down to take her offering.

"Can I ride your pony?" the smallest asked, without shame or fear.

Now her brother was striving to hide a smile.  "Perhaps Thyrð may let you ride his pony later, after we have eaten--if your parents are agreeable, Uspag, and you make sure his cup is never empty."

More likely not, Auð would guess, from the hardened expression on Thyrð's face.  But though so wild a greeting was unnerving, it also had a disarming charm.  How could one doubt the friendliness of such uninhibited creatures, the younger of whom gaily sang and skipped as they escorted them along the verge of a level field of furrowed sand?

Yet here the ever-present rumble of the Sea, as profound a bass as the groan of tormented stone, was more portentous, damping any sense of relief.

At least it grew no worse as they went up the steep, rutted path to where the white cliff rose sheer as a wall, their ponies laboring and blowing beneath them.  "Welcome, Masters!"  Red-bearded Gaernath stood at the top, smiling on the long train of guests.  "A fine day you have brought us for the feast!"

"May the whole of your spring be so fine!" she heard Veylin's genial reply.  He had taken his place in the lead as they crossed the lea, leaving her in her sons' care.  "Do you have room for so many ponies up here?"

"Of course!  Though we will send them down again once you are afoot, unless they will bear the boards for the feast on their backs."

"His might," Nordri chuckled, "but I would not bet our dinners on it."

With a last heave, Auð's pony crested the slope, and she looked about as she urged it to follow Thyrnir's, making room for Thyrð and the others who followed.

The ledge was much wider than she had imagined, a grand front stoop on which to sit and look out over half the world.  One part was set off by a low wall of woven branches: craning her neck to peer within, Auð saw dark dug earth and neat rows of green growing things.  The mouths of the two caves were screened with the same rustic panels of branches in their lower parts; the smaller seemed to have draggled old heather layered over the weave.  Several Men moved among the mob of ponies, trading greetings and civilly holding beasts as folk swung out of the saddle.

"Welcome, Master Thyrnir."  A wiry fellow in a nice shade of green, grey threaded through his brown beard, approached, bobbing his head and casting his eyes briefly downward before taking the bridle of her son's pony.  "I am glad to see you have brought your fiddle, and Unagh will be too."

"What of Murdag?"  Thyrnir asked, sliding down the beast's shoulder.  "She fares well, I hope."

"Fine, fine," the Man said, with a slow smile.  "But she cares little for music if she cannot dance, and I doubt she could pace half a figure as she is."

"No grandchild yet, Finean?" Grani asked, pulling up beside Auð as she gratefully set her feet back on the ground.  Thyrð was already unloading her cloth, setting the bolts in the shelter of the cliff-foot.

"Not yet, Master," Finean answered phlegmatically, loosening Thyrnir's saddle-girth.

Veylin, blackthorn in hand, came to find her.  _It is not too much?_ he signed.

Auð rolled her eyes.  Sút was trading pleasantries with one of the slender bald-faced blonds.  Did he think her less stalwart than her friend?  _I have seen Men before_ , she reminded him.

Taking her elbow, he turned her to face west.

Half the world indeed.  And all of it water.  With that rumble in her ears, half a tone below a growl, and remembering the pearl-crested waves that held the sea-jewel, menacing even in miniature, Auð could not quell a shiver.  More terrible than Orcs . . . .  The strong scent of brine that had hung about Veylin and her sons when they brought the fire-opal out of the teeth of the tempest last summer . . . yes, there was a hint of that in the air here, rich as any mineral spring, the blood of the earth.

But if her boys could bear it, and her younger brother--

"Master Auð!  You have come after all.  Welcome to Habad-e-Mindon.  It is good to see you here, this grand Spring Day."

And then there were those who loved that dreadful expanse of mighty water; as if it were a spouse, some said.  "Well met, Lady," Auð replied, turning to face Saelon.  "A merry Tuilérë to you and your family."

The blue-green gown was nearly a perfect match for the silver-capped sea-beryl, which hung at her breast, and brought out the fleck of color in her grey eyes.  "If you will share it with us.  Rian!" the woman of Men called, casting a glance towards another, taller, gowned figure, who had just dipped with a graceful genuflection of her skirts to Rekk.  "Do you remember my speaking of Master Auð?" Saelon said, as the other woman joined them.

"Of course.  At your service," Rian murmured with maidenly diffidence; but her eyes were shrewd as her aunt's, lips pursing slightly as she weighed the quality of Auð's dove-grey cloak and the broidery on the cuffs of her sleeves.  Her own gown was an almost cobalt say, ornamented with paler blue and violet flowers, and their twining stems.  "You are kin to Master Veylin, are you not?"

"At yours and your family's," Auð returned, bowing.  "Yes, I own to the connection."

Veylin huffed, though such evidence of ease seemed to please him.  Gazing past the women of Men to where a pair of spitted lambs hung over a crackling wood fire, he said, low, "I hope I have not overreached your wish, Saelon, and brought too many guests to your feast.  The reputation of your table joined to fair weather has left our halls all but empty."

The Lady surveyed the crowded ledge beyond them over their heads.  "How many are you?"  She did not appear greatly concerned.  There were other fires behind her besides the one where the lambs roasted: a stout dark-haired matron stirred the fair-sized pot hung over one, while an enormously gravid woman sat by another, tending cakes on a griddle.  Two other gowned figures, one fair and one dark, moved with trays of cups among those whose ponies were being taken away.

"One more than a score."

"I do not see Bersa."

"No.  He did not choose to come."

"Well," the Lady judged, a smile playing about her lips, "considering his appetite, that may be as well.  Without him, I believe there may just be enough."

Just enough?  The meal began with still-sizzling grilled trout, pease soup heartened with boar hocks, and a great salad of the season's first greens dressed with eggs.  The high table, where Auð sat beside Rian, was favored with sweetbreads cooked in butter and calves' liver with griddled onions, though Saelon sent hers to Dírmaen.  He was at the next table, heavily wrapped in woolens, so peaked and bowed with coughing Auð did not recognize him at first.

So Thyrnir lost his florin.  Though surely, if the Man could not halt his hacking, it would have been better if he had not joined the company.  Were his lungs so weak he could not clear them, or did he make that noise because he resented being excluded from the table of honor?

The courses that followed left little room for irritation: roast lamb with ramps and herbs; a sumptuous white veal stew thick with eggs and cream, the specialty of Maelchon's wife; marrowbones with a dish of beans; veal collops pounded thin topped with egg sauce; and a strange sea-stew.  Auð did not like the last--the greens looked suspiciously like the foul stuff she had picked out of Veylin's beard last Yavannië--but Sút, whose kinship with Regin had gained her a place at the Lady's left hand, relished the sweet, pink-tinged meat Saelon said was lobster.  Bottomless cups of ale and mead, baskets of barley bannocks, lashings of sweet butter and soft cheese, and sweet dishes to finish . . . .

Poor in possessions they certainly were, but by Mahal, they ate like kings!  Discreetly loosening her belt beneath the table, Auð marveled that Bersa had been unwilling to overcome his girth--or his animosity, or both together--for such a repast.  Although they might have needed a sledge to get him home again.  One did not mind that the cream cakes were made of barley meal when they were drowned in custard-sauce.  As she sipped Rian's flower-wine cordial, a welcome finish to such an engrossing meal, she watched as her brother and Saelon discussed the making and mining of salt in a desultory, after-dinner fashion, Randir joining amicably in, as he had seen something of how folk harvested salt from the shores of Langstrand in the south.

Little wonder Veylin and the other men were prepared to travel here on any excuse, if this was a taste of the welcome they received.  The question was, how was she to get a larger share of this bounty onto the table at Gunduzahar?

She did not regret coming.  It was a relief to have her confidence in Veylin's judgment restored.  The scorn and niggardliness of Men was such a commonplace that none could blame her for doubting his assurances regarding the good will and profit to be found among these, confessedly poor, without witnessing it for herself.  Yet what excuse would she now have for making such a foray beyond the delf?  The country appeared empty and quiet . . . but Thekk had been slain a league from here, by a foe as unforeseen as the brigands that had recently attacked Saelon and her folk.  The Men might be trusty, but the land was not--who knew what other dangers lurked, unsuspected, in its bogs and thickets?

Beside her, the Lady's niece doucely ventured, "Master Sút, I have been admiring the broidery on your tunic.  Can the thread be silver?"

"Yes, it is," Sút allowed, helping herself to a trifle more bilberry fool.

"I thought it must be," Rian murmured, "as you are a silversmith.  A most handsome effect, especially on the black.  The thread is very dear, I suppose."

Sút's gaze went from the young West-woman to Auð, one black brow lifted an interrogative fraction.  "Compared to linen, certainly.  But a silver penny will provide a fair length."

"How much?"

"Auð," her friend appealed, "this is more your province than mine.  What price does silver floss fetch, and have you any to spare in your store?"

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Notes

**Fearna** : Saelon's people call the steep-banked river that runs into the sea at Habad-e-Mindon Allt Fearna, "stream of the alder," for the trees that grow along its banks behind the cliffs.

**Lye-metal** : potassium, a soft, light, silver-white metal that burns with a violent violet flame when put in water.  Potassium is, therefore, not found in a pure state in nature, but must be refined from compounds such as lye (potassium carbonate, obtained from wood ash--pot-ash, which provides the element's name--and traditionally used to make soap) and stored in mineral oil.

**Florin** : a two-shilling gold coin.  Florins originally took their name from Florence, which first minted them, and the lily device they bore: in Middle-Earth, they probably derive from an Elvish coin similarly marked.

**"the ever-present rumble of the Sea, as profound a bass as the groan of tormented stone"** : Why, as _The Silmarillion_ ("Of the Sindar") tells us, should Dwarves hate the sound of the sea and fear to look upon it?  Thorin and Company do not seem to have felt uneasy at Escaroth upon the Long Lake, nor was Gimli afraid of the great River Anduin, so it can't be antipathy for water in large quantities.  I have conjectured--and here Tolkien's "hated the sound of the sea" is most pertinent--that Dwarvish hearing extends into the range of infrasound, the frequencies below human perception.  A variety of animals communicate in infrasound: recent research suggests elephants "converse" while several miles apart using these frequencies, which can travel great distances with little distortion.  The hypothesis may be supported by descriptions of dwarven voices as low or deep; perhaps there are elements of Khuzdul that are beyond Mannish (and even Elvish) hearing.  
            The ability to hear lower frequencies would be useful for Dwarves, because rock "groans" in infrasound under stress, particularly before the stone gives way in earthquakes or landslips (which is probably why so many animals are anxious or flee when earthquakes are imminent).  However, the ocean also emits infrasound, created by the resonance of long sea swells or the tumult of distant storms.  If the Sea sounds anything like an impending earthquake, little wonder Dwarves don't like hanging out at the beach!  In order to get Dwarves anywhere near the shore, I have supposed that individual variation in acuity at these frequencies and tolerance for unpleasant noise means some Dwarves bear the ominous sound of the Sea better than others (after all, not everyone flinches at fingernails on a blackboard *shudder*); habituation may also make it less horrible over time.

**Sweetbreads** : the pancreas and/or thymus of a young animal, usually a calf or lamb; these were (and still are) considered a great delicacy.  Organ meats, while not popular today, are more nutritious than muscle-meat.

**Collops** : thin slices of meat; basically, this is a veal scallopini or schnitzel.

**Yavannië** : Westron/Common Speech (from Quenya), September.

**"sweet butter and soft cheese"** : butter is usually refered to as "sweet" when it is unsalted; salting increases its shelf life.  Since Dwarves trade--especially here, in the Blue Mountains--at some distance for their food supplies, I have presumed that many fresh, short-lived products rarely grace their tables, making them particular delicacies.

**Bilberry fool** : in this sense, a fool is a dessert dish made of sweetened fruit and whipped cream.


	22. Taking the Air

_It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back, to retrace one's steps to the upper air--there's the rub, the task._

\--Virgil, _Aeneid_

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"Why do you mistrust them?" Randir asked, as he snugged the cinch on the saddle-girth down tight.  "I have never known Dwarves so amiable."

Dírmaen shrugged, and stifled the cough that followed.  "Perhaps that is why."  And their numbers continued to increase: seven of those who had come to eat at Tuilérë were new to him.  Veylin's strength grew . . . yet Coruwi made no objection.  He did not understand.

Though grateful for the sunshine here beyond the cliff's morning shadow, he would rather have been by the hearth within, where it was warmer.  His blood was still thin, and walking even the few paces across the cliff-shelf made his weakness plain.  He had been forbidden the hall in mild weather, however; bundled in woolens and sent out like a child to take the sun and air.

Randir hmmed, lengthening the stirrup leathers.  "There is that.  Though to what advantage?  When I pressed him, Coruwi assured me the Dwarves' claims to the land are based on prior right alone, and Círdan sees no threat to Lindon in the alliance.  They seek cheap meat and grain, without doubt . . . though," his fellow Ranger grinned, "it seems uphill work.  Saelon's gratitude was short-lived!"

Dírmaen drew his cloak more closely about him, sour-faced.  "Her quittances are as prompt as they are generous."  His own account, he was sure, she would consider repaid by weeks of assiduous nursing.  Staring at the short, weedy dun, one of the outlaws' nags, he asked, "Why are you saddling that beast, instead of Ruin?"

"Because I am not riding him," his friend answered equably.

Then why were the stirrups so low?  Who else here had such length of leg?

Saelon came to the door of the hall, turning to speak to someone still within.  The fine gown she had worn at the feast had given way to workaday plainness and patches, and despite his leaden mood, Dírmaen's heart caught when he saw the wicker packbasket on her back.

She was going out after herbs.  She must, he was sure; she had used so many on him.  He was as sick of being dosed as of his feebleness, and could still taste the thyme of this morning's brew.  Yet Coruwi's repeated assurance that his scouts had swept hill and shore notwithstanding, he could not quell a pang of fear . . . and futility.  How could she, after what had happened, ignore his warnings and rove alone, unguarded?

Coming over to join them, Saelon looked from the horse to him.  "Thank you, Randir.  Is he up to it?"

"You would know better than I, Lady!"

That earned his fellow a droll, narrow-eyed look.  "I meant the horse."

Randir chuckled.  "It will do him no harm, especially if the grazing is good where you are going."

"Where is that?" Dírmaen asked, frowning at their nonsense.  He thought his friend too complaisant towards Saelon, and resented the ease between them.

Saelon's gaze--the healer's gaze, critically appraising--came back to him.  "To the bay where coltsfoot grows, two leagues south.  I must collect what I can, before their season is past.  Will you come with me?"

Dírmaen gaped--and fell prey to a fit of coughing, lungs racked to clear the settled phlegm from their depths.  Finally, he gasped hoarsely, "Two leagues?"  Did she mean to kill him after all?  He could not climb the track from the machair without sitting on the boulder at the turn to catch his breath, and the feast had exhausted him, though he did nothing but sit and eat and watch, drinking watered small beer.  He had slept most of yesterday, recovering.

"Riding at a footpace.  You can rest along the way, if need be, and while I harvest."

"Shall I lash you to the saddle?" Randir asked, not at all solicitously.

They had conspired, arranged this without his leave.  "What purpose would that serve?"

Taking no notice of his petulant tone--more wretched weakness--Saelon said, as if she had never thought otherwise, "I should like company, going so far; and the exercise would do you good."

"Why can you not take her?" he demanded querulously of Randir.

"Finean wants to move the horses into the hills, to the dale with the pools, to rest the shore pasture.  I promised to scout that way."

"Gaernath could do that."

"Gaernath," Randir replied patiently--another cosset Dírmaen had had too much of--"is patrolling around the Bald Heads."

A pair of bare, rounded hills a little north of east, on the way to where the lad had slain the wolves last year; the glen of pools lay beyond the oakwood, southward.  Randir greatly admired Saelon's bloodstock, especially the two-year-old bay colt . . . but if he hoped he could cozen her enough to gain that mettlesome beast, the last of her brother's breeding, he was deluded.  "One of the cottars, then.  Even Teig would be more use, if ill befell."

"Come," Randir said in his sensible way, concern creasing his brow, "I thought you would be glad to get out.  Two leagues is not much, ahorse, especially on one so dull as this.  The Lady will take care that you are not overtaxed."

Perhaps he would have been glad to escape Habad, even if only for a time . . . if she were not his companion.  Was this meant to humble him further still, by making him recant his former objections or feel his frailty?  He regarded her balefully as she stood there, waiting, self-possessed, dispassionate.

No.  Her thought was for the herbs she required; the benefit of the outing to her patient a felicitous adjunct.  His refusal would move her not at all, except perhaps to set an extra portion of blood sausage on his plate--she would go, with or without him.  "I will need my sword."

Randir ran to fetch it, a happier smile on his face.

"You need not go, if you do not feel equal to it," Saelon remarked quietly.

Did she think he would not hang back without her permission?  "If you say it will do me good, I am sure you are right."

Randir brought his spear as well as his sword, and held the nag's head while he mounted.  "How will you go, Lady, should I need to seek you?"

"We should not stray from the strip between shore and cliff, once we are past the ridge, unless the weather turns bad.  In that case, seek us in the caves along the foot of the cliffs."

"Good hunting!" his friend wished her, and clapped him--softly--on the back.

The dun was a dull beast, setting its feet with tedious care on the track down to the machair and plodding thereafter; yet the motion jarred his lungs, sending him into another fit of deep, wrenching coughs.  Chest heaving and eyes streaming, he clung to saddle and spear, praying for it to pass.  To be forced to turn back, before they even left the machair . . . .

By the time they turned at Maelchon's, he had gotten the better of it, hawking up a great gobbet that he spat into the rough grass.  Breathing seemed a little easier then, and he was able to look on what he had last seen as the field of battle.

There was nothing here that recalled that bloody day, save two of the outlaws' horses in the pen beside the house, ears pricked at the approach of their former companion.  Beneath him, the dun whickered in greeting.  Three of the younger children played in the yard, while a black hound--Luath, Dírmaen thought--lay tethered and forlorn beside the door.  It was the children, not the dog, that gave tongue at their approach.

Fransag put her head out of the door, her expression hard until she saw them.  "Hei!  Where are you off to?"

"After coltsfoot," Saelon explained, stopping in the dooryard.  "Murdag might be having pangs . . . though this is her first.  I ought to be back long before she births, but if not, will you go to her?"

"Aye," the goodwife answered stoutly.  "Any of the lads can fetch me.  Will you stop by the new field on your way and leave word with Maelchon, so he does not fear if he comes home and finds the house empty?"

"Of course.  You will take the children with you?"

"There is no one to watch them, Tearlag sweir as she is," Fransag groused, wiping her broad hands on her apron.  "What ails the quean?"

Dírmaen kept very still, stifling the threat of another cough.  From disjointed snatches of low-voiced conference as he drifted in and out of fever, Muirne coming in great distress to Saelon for counsel, he knew the serving woman had been cruelly violated by two of the outlaws.  How could her mistress be so unfeeling?

Saelon sighed heavily.  "She has not your strength, Fransag.  The memories prey on her."

"If she came home to her work, she would have no time to be waesome.  I know I have not, with a man and six bairns to see to; nor the lads, doing Fokel's work as well as their own."

He had learnt of the deaths of the babe and Gràinne only two days ago, at the feast.  He ought not to have left these folk.  If he had mastered himself and not run away like a heartsick lad--

"I have been thinking," Saelon interrupted her.  "Would Leod and Murdag be a help to you?"

That halted the rising tirade; Fransag considered, eyes narrowed.  "What do you mean?"

"If everyone is agreeable, Maelchon could take up Leod's bond.  Cottars are not servants, yet Leod could tend the cattle as well as the fields, and you would have an extra pair of hands about the house."

"And a squalling babby," the goodwife pointed out, with the same jaded expression she had given Grani when bargaining for a stout iron-bound chest that locked.  The key hung from her belt now.  "Why would you be rid of them?"

Saelon gave her a knowing look.  "Leod does not sort well with Gaernath."

"Still?  I thought he was sour because her big belly stinted him."

"That may be," Saelon allowed, shrugging.  "But I would prevent quarrels, if I can.  I think well of the young folk, otherwise."

Fransag pursed her lips.  "What would you want in return?"

"I could take on Tearlag; stock, perhaps, since you need bere to repay the Dwarves; peat-cutting."

"Have you spoken to Maelchon?"

"Not yet.  What point, if you would not like it?"

"Mmph."  The goodwife seemed pleased by this, her look of discontent easing.  "I will talk to him."

"Good day to you then," Saelon said.

"Fare ye well."  Fransag gave Dírmaen no more than a curt nod.  She held his abrupt departure last autumn against him, it seemed.

The two of them continued on, up the sloping back of the cliff to where Maelchon and Saelon's cottars were breaking fresh ground, Leod encouraging the horses while the husbandman and Artan wrestled with the plough, helping force it through the dense virgin turf.  Behind them, the earth showed pale as in the Downs, the white stone of the cliff sweetening the soil.  When they reached the end of the furrow, pausing to rest the horses and wipe the sweat from their brows, Saelon hailed them.  "This looks very good, Maelchon!"

Ruddy with exertion and pleasure, the husbandman came to join them.  "We will hope so, Lady.  Greetings, Dírmaen!  It is good to see you out again."

"Thank you."

Saelon ran her eye over the furrows.  "How much more do you mean to plough?"

"As much as we can get through before sowing," Maelchon declared, gazing on the growing field.  "The machair is sweet land, but we cannot plant it endlessly.  If the crop in the south field falls off half as much as last year, we will have to let it go back to grass for a rest."

"Three years of bounty would be marvelous indeed," Saelon agreed, stooping to take some of the soil in her hand, rubbing it between her fingers and tasting it.  "This is nice; it should not be as droughty as the sand.  What do you think of planting beans and pease?"

The two of them talked of dung and their stock of seed, the various kinds of corn, and the difference in climate between the shore and Srathen Brethil.  Artan listened attentively; his brother hoisted one of Whitefoot's hairy hooves, frowning over its imperfections.  Dírmaen shifted in the saddle, seeking a more comfortable seat.  Randir had thrown a woolfell across, a cushion for his wasted hams; he was ashamed to need it.

He must strive to conquer this fretful peevishness, which was more shameful still.  Folk were only being kind--even Saelon.  Doubtless she wished him away again.  Her care was surely in service of that: the sooner he was fit, the sooner she would be rid of him.  If this outing was but another medicine, he reflected as Saelon warned Maelchon of his wife's possible absence and wished the plough good speed, let him choke it down and shorten the agony of mortification.  Taking a firmer grip on the reins, he pressed his listless mount to follow as Saelon set off once more, striding up the slope towards the ridge.

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"Dírmaen."

He started awake, momentarily bemused to find himself lying on the ground, with the sough of the sea in his ears and cloud-dappled sky overhead.  Where . . . ?

The slim hand that went with the voice, exquisitely familiar now, settled lightly on his shoulder.  "Did you have a good sleep?" Saelon asked.

The shore, south of the Ram, where she had brought him.  Good . . . .  Was his sleep good?  He was not sure; could not remember dozing off on the blanket in the sun.  His mind was thick, stupefied by heavy, untimely slumber.  Heavy.  Unbroken by coughing.  Laboriously he sat up, still blinking, and nodded.  "I suppose."

Now he felt the hated tickle in his lungs, and began to hack.

When he had had his fit out, Saelon returned--when had she left?--a steaming cup in her hand.  "Here," she murmured, one hand on his back to steady and soothe him.

The brew was grateful to his racked throat, warm and syrupy-sweet with coltsfoot and honey.  "Thank you," he husked.

From her smile, you would think he had never thanked her.  "You are welcome."

Though, in fact, he could not remember the last time he had thanked her.  He had been too weak, at first, and then gratitude had grown oppressive, tangled with the tormenting intimacy of her touch.  Unable to bear her gaze longer, he looked about as he took another draught, cradling the heated leathern cup in his chill fingers.  A small fire of sea-cast sticks sent up a drift of smoke from the nearby pavement of shingle; the dun cropped greedily on new grass, over by the larger gorse-bush; the sun was well past its zenith.  They must start back soon, or Randir would worry.  "Were you able to get enough coltsfoot?"

"We will hope so," she said, so soberly that he had to glance at her to see the droll quirk of her mouth.  "More of it is leaves than I would like, but they are nearly as virtuous as the flowers.  I have dug some plants as well.  It is not always convenient to come so far."

What was he to say to that?  He could not tell whether it was a complaint or simply an observation.  Draining the cup, Dírmaen set it down and gathered himself to rise.  "Shall I see to my horse?"

Such cool eyes, cool as the sea that hissed in the cobbles of the strand, assessing his strength.  "If you like."

He understood why Saelon had hobbled the beast when he set out to catch it, for the only cunning it had was in evading capture, subsiding back into spiritless resignation as soon as he seized its bridle.  For a time, all he could do was lean against its bony shoulder and wheeze.  Saelon did not come to help, to his great relief, busying herself with putting out the fire and packing blanket and cup into her basket.

Dírmaen forgave the horse when he replaced the bit--a severe curb, which made him wonder what Randir was about--and saw how its mouth was scarred.  Had nothing the outlaws touched escaped their brutality?

Hoisting her obviously weighty pack-basket, Saelon settled its straps on her shoulders and waited, stolid as the horse, for him to mount, his spear in her hands.

In his mind's eye, he could still see her, there in Maelchon's dooryard, drenched in gore, locked in the wolf's-head's clutch.  How had that dreadful day touched her?  For she had been touched.  Perhaps not as Tearlag had been--she had said not, though how could a woman admit otherwise?--yet even a heart of stone would not have been unmoved.  Had not been: Randir had spoken uneasily of the queer, contained anger of Veylin and Thyrnir; of how unsettling so much wrath was, in such small folk.  Dírmaen remembered it well, from the day they drained the _raugs'_ tarn . . . the Dwarves' eyes flat as stone, hot as the coals of a smith's forge; alien, the enmity there as immovable as the mountains that spawned them.

Outlandish folk, who gave nothing away, not even their feelings.  Dírmaen thought Veylin's relations with Saelon a little reserved, more correct, at the feast.  Had his regard for her been tarnished by the sullying hands of the outlaws?  Was it the presence of the silversmith who was kin to his king that made him more circumspect?  Or had he merely echoed some difference in Saelon?

For there was a difference in her, though what is was, Dírmaen could not say.  She had not, so far as he could see, grown fearful.  Nor harsher, as Fransag seemed to have done.  Maybe she was more careful.  Not chary--she had always been watchful--but more attentive to folk, more concerned with their welfare.  Perhaps it was only that he was now more aware of it, having been so long the object of her care.

Care . . . .  Though his body--which could hardly get creditably into the saddle of this smallish nag--remained torpid, his mind burned at the memory of her touch.  What had he done to deserve so cruel a fate; that she, who had no desire, should be granted the right to handle his flesh at her will, while debility left him limp?

When he turned the dun and went to join her, she was gazing northwestward, frowning abstractly at a line of darker clouds beneath a shading hand.  "I do not like the look of that," she said, giving the spear up to him.  "Do you feel equal to a brisker pace?"

"You are the one afoot," he told her--and his tongue balked at the ceremoniousness of her title.  After weeks of intimacy; here, when no one else was by . . . surely such formality would seem stilted and cold, ungrateful.  Besides, she did not like it.  "If this beast cannot match you, burdened as you are, he is fit for naught but dog-meat."

It was kind of her to smile at so lame an attempt to cover his awkwardness.  "Let us test him, then," she said, though she stroked the dull, coarse-coated neck before stepping out.  "I have been considering how we might best use these beasts.  Or, rather," she corrected herself, "what I should do with my share of them."

Dírmaen stared at her, surprised, for the goods and chattels of criminals belonged to the lord who brought them to justice.  "You did not keep them all?"

"What would I do with a half dozen scabby jades?" she scoffed, with the double complacence of one who owns many fine horses while preferring shanks's mare.  "No; I divided them in proportion to the harm suffered.  Maelchon took the chief's stallion, which is lame, and a gelding for the loss of his daughter and Fokel; Fransag two geldings, for the death of her mother and her own distress.  One of the mares is Tearlag's, and I took the other, plus this fellow, to replace Cloot."

"What happened to Cloot?"  The patchy skewbald had been a headstrong beast, but like all the horses she had inherited from her brother, a sturdy, good-hearted creature.  This animal was in no way his match.

Saelon huffed.  "Killed under Partalan, as he defended Canand.  That is the second horse in nearly as many years!"

Dírmaen left that lie: in the year of raids out of Rhudaur he had gone through half a dozen mounts, and the Dunlending was no friend of his.  "Why do you not ride," he asked what he had often wondered, "particularly when you come as far as this?"

"It is easier to see the herbage, nearer to the ground."  To prove it, perhaps, she suddenly stooped, hardly breaking her stride, and came up with several fleshy, heart-shaped leaves.  "Here--eat these."

He knew better than to ask what is was by now, for she would take that as an invitation to discourse on the varied uses and habits of the plant.  It had a sharp taste, more pleasant than otherwise.  "You might use this fellow as a packbeast, to spare yourself the burden of your harvests."

"I might," she agreed, nodding-then sighed.  "I had an old grey garron I took about with me, who carried my peats and sea-ware, but Gaernath rode him to Srathen Brethil when the Dwarves came.  I wonder what became of him?"

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Notes

**Sweir** : Scots, reluctant, unwilling; also lazy.

**Quean** : Scots, a young woman; a hussy.

**Waesome** : Scots, sorrowful.

**Bairns** : Scots, children.

**"planting beans and pease"** : older historical accounts to the contrary, crop rotation was not a medieval innovation.  Evidence suggests that legumes, which help fix essential nitrogen in the soil, were grown in some kind of rotation with cereals almost as soon as people began to farm.

**Curb** : a [bit with a chain or strap](http://www.gatling-gun.com/images/M1906_Curb_Bit_aa.jpg) that runs under a horse's jaw (the curb), and upper and lower shanks.  The [upper shanks attach to the cheekpieces and the lower shanks to the reins](http://www.sustainabledressage.com/tack/bridle/curb.gif), so when a rider pulls on the reins, pressure is applied not only to the horse's mouth but to the poll (where the headpiece rests, behind the ears, bringing the head down) and chin groove.  Curb-bits are used for greater control and when rapid response is required, so these were the norm for war-horses.  The longer the shanks, the greater the force that could be applied; additional features might press on other parts of the mouth, tongue, or nose.  Some medieval bits were extremely severe by modern standards: once a horse's mouth grows "hard" from harsh bitting, more force has to be applied to get the desired response.

**Skewbald** : a horse with patches of white and a color other than black.  While Americans tend to call all parti-colored horses "pintos," the British distinguish black-and-white piebalds from skewbalds.

**Sea-ware** : seaweed, especially the coarser kinds used as a fertilizer.


	23. Meeting of Minds

_Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee._

\--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, _Meditations_

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"Should I strip another pace?" Oski asked, water bag in hand.

Veylin frowned at the muddy surface of the rock, clearer now that it had been sluiced.  Schist, and nothing but schist.  "No," he decided, narrowing his eyes and reaching into his pouch for his pipe.  "The vein has taken a turning, or finally ended.  Cover that back over, while I consider."

Returning to the convenient seat of a nearby boulder, Veylin filled and lit his pipe, watching his prentice replace the earth into the cutting with a critical eye as he reflected on the wry nature of this land.  Like the schist, which had been hammered until the rock itself was rumpled, the stone beneath their feet had been forged into patterns beyond his ken.  This vein he sought, the finest fraction of earth's blood squeezed into a fracture in the already contorted schist, had followed the line of weakness across half a league, cropping out at the surface or beneath a skim of boulder clay or peat.

Now it--and the gems it might harbor--had turned aside or plunged deep between here and the little burn that had cut it so neatly.  They would have to go back and try to pick it up nearer the burn . . . but not now.  Prospecting was hungry work, and the sun was high overhead.  This was a better place than most to take a bite, the thicket of thorn that screened their work breaking the sportive Viressë wind.

As Oski refit the last piece of turf, a low whistle came from the rise where Thyrð kept watch.

Signing Oski to quickly pack up the tools, Veylin rose, pipe clenched between his teeth.  Who could it be?  Hanadan, with or without other roving lads from White Cliffs?  Randir or Gaernath riding patrol?  Or something inimical?  If it was an Elf, they were careless.  Ducking through a gap in the budding whitethorn and stumping up the slope to where Thyrð now crouched, he gestured, _Who is it?_ , peering in the direction his nephew pointed.

"Saelon and Dírmaen, I think," Thyrð murmured, hardly to be heard.

Two Men, yes; one Dúnadan-high.  The other was Saelon, with that great basket on her back; he could not mistake her, even at this distance.  "You are sure it is Dírmaen?" he asked, equally low.  Dúnedain were so similar: long and lean and dark of hair, as alike as coal from the same seam.

"Fairly.  He is slower than he was, or Randir."

True; yet it was strange he should be out with Saelon.  If, after what had happened, she felt it unwise to wander alone, as was her wont, surely Gaernath would have been a more desirable escort than a weakened man she did not agree with.  Still, what ought they do?  Had it only been Saelon, now that the cutting was concealed, Veylin would have hailed and invited her to eat with them.  Her discretion could be relied on, and he had been seeking an opportune time to question her about the features of this land, which she knew well from her own prospecting after greenstuff.  Although she knew little about stone and cared less, she had an attentive eye and might save them much time and effort if she was willing to share what she had observed.  Since Dírmaen accompanied her, however . . . .  "Come to the thicket," Veylin told Thyrð.  "We will eat while they are about."

Yet as they unpacked loaf, cheese, and the end of the shoulder of mutton, they could hear the Men, drawing nearer.  "--strange," Saelon observed.  "We were five also, three sons and two daughters . . . though Hallas, our youngest brother, died along with my mother in the plague year."

"The sixteenth year of Arathorn's reign?" Dírmaen asked, and after a pause continued, "I do not remember it--I was but four--but they say that was a bitter winter in Tum Melui, half the sheep dying because of the depth of the snow.  My uncle always said that was what spared us from the plague, that none could travel.  Who was your other brother?  Was he a Ranger?"

"Brassar?"  They were close enough now that Veylin could hear the coldness in Saelon's voice.  "No."

Naught but the sound of the wind in the branches overhead.  Oski stopped cutting the bread mid-slice.

"Here," Saelon carried on, determinedly natural, "isn't this a pleasant spot?"  Her pack thumped down, just the other side of the thorn-bush.

"Very," Dírmaen replied, doucely courteous, boots shuffling in the grass.

Veylin huffed.  To remain silent invited suspicion, if they were discovered, or farce.  "So it seems," he agreed, loudly.

The boots both left the ground for a moment; Saelon's bare feet quickly circled the bush, and she peered into the gap where they sat around their meat.  "Veylin?"  A smile of pleased surprise brightened her face.  "Well met!  Thyrð and Oski, the same to you."

"Greetings, Lady," Oski replied, and carried on with the loaf.

"Greetings," Dírmaen echoed, coming to gaze over Saelon's shoulder.  The weeks since the feast had much improved the Ranger's appearance, though he was still somewhat gaunt; one end of a strung bow jutted up from behind his wasted shoulder.  "What brings you here?"

"What do you think?" Oski said, more affably than Veylin could have managed, lifting the loaf.  "And you?"

Saelon chuckled.  "The same.  May we join you?  I have fresh cress, if you would like it."

"Of course," Veylin said heartily, taking a certain pleasure from the shadow of disapproval that passed across Dírmaen's face.  "Will you take some cheese in return?"

She would; and hardly had she brought the food out of her basket than his prentices began angling for exchanges of their own: thin rounds of onion for green cheese, mutton for the smoked trout.  "If you like our fare so much," Saelon said, smiling on Oski as he slathered his bread with the creamy cheese, "you should come and trade more often."

The Longbeard looked thoughtful as he wiped his knife scrupulously clean on the crust.  "What would you take for, say, a stone of this cheese?"

"Are you in earnest?" she asked, passing a pair of bannocks and the trout to Dírmaen.

"Perhaps.  Your cheese is very good."

Saelon laughed.  "I like yours better, but no doubt novelty adds savour."

"We get it from the Shire," Veylin told her, carving another slice from the shoulder.  "You are sure you do not want meat?"

"I will trade," Dírmaen abruptly offered Thyrð.  "I would prefer mutton."

"Truly?" Thyrð asked, hand arrested in the act of reaching.

"Yes."

Shaking her head as the Ranger handed his portion of fish to Veylin's nephew, Saelon said, "If food palls with eating, you should be wearier of mutton than anyone."

"I like mutton," Dírmaen responded, heaping slices onto his bannock.

And there she left it, with a soft snort of dismissal.  "How are things with you in Gunduzahar?" she asked, turning to Veylin.

"Well."  Better than he had expected, after the tumultuous beginning of the season.  The new members of the delf sorted well with the veterans: perhaps because Vitnir was not there to breed discontent, or because Bersi's crew had found the spoil from the new level rich in copper.  There had even been a pocket of nice peridots from the chamber that was to be the women's bath, which they had celebrated as a good omen.  He intended to make the three best into rings for Auð, Sút, and Hlin, in honor of their willingness to make their homes here.  "And at Habad?"

"The same."  Indeed, she looked content and seemed in good humour, surprisingly so, given the events of late winter and the Ranger's presence.  "Leod and Murdag have a daughter; there was corn enough to sow all of Maelchon's new field; and Partalan rode over from Srathen Brethil last week with news that a fourth family is returning to the glen."

"My congratulations to Leod and his wife.  So all is well in Srathen Brethil?  There has been no further trouble with the outlaws?"  Veylin offered her the skin of ale.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Ale--our dark ale."

"No thank you."  She passed a large handful of cress to Dírmaen, who dutifully shoved it between bannock and meat.  "Things seem as well in Srathen Brethil as could be hoped for: the reivers despoiled the houses that survived the _raugs_ , but there has been no sign of them since.  Hanend--do you remember him?  He was the youngest of the Rangers sent to us by Arathorn--has remained with Halpan to keep watch."

"Is Randir still with you?"  Veylin thought her Chieftain had withdrawn support since she defied him, but more Men of the Star seemed to hang about her and her folk, not fewer.

"Yes, he is."

Conversation flagged as they attended to their meal, though Veylin attributed that to the awkwardness of Dírmaen's presence.  He felt the impropriety of ignoring the Man, but what could he say that would not sound false or rouse the hostility between them?  Even inquiring after his health might lead to suspicions--not unfounded--of pity or impatience to see him off.  Surely, if Dírmaen had recovered enough to keep pace with Saelon, he was fit to return to Arnor.  Yet here he was, keeping Saelon company.  He must have some lingering weakness, not apparent to the eye, that still required her care.  Veylin could think of no other reason she would suffer the risk of importunity, given the Man's peremptory infatuation.

Saelon was the one to break the silence, as she brushed the crumbs from her hands.  "There are many things we might take for cheese and other produce," she said, going back to Oski's earlier question, "but the services of a blacksmith would be most welcome.  Harness buckles are wearing out.  It would be good for Artan and Leod to have their own scythes and sickles, and the boys are of an age to want knives.  Shears; shoes for spades, and occasionally horses.  Small, everyday things we cannot make or mend for ourselves."

For more than a year he had tried to find someone who would suit them, without success.  He had warned her that he could promise nothing, but the failure still galled.  "I said I would seek one for you; I am still searching."

Dírmaen reached out a long arm to rummage in Saelon's packbasket, coming out with a small sack of hazelnuts.  "It is hard to find a smith among Dwarves?"

The Man's silence had been too good to last.  "You were not content to remain here, tending to commonplaces, save for rich reward.  How should my people be any different?  There is no iron or coal hereabouts, to tempt an ironworker to settle near, and these people's custom would not keep a blacksmith well-employed.  Those who have been willing to take the work, I would not trust to make hobnails for my boots."

"Why not?" Saelon asked hastily, as if she would displace any reply from the Ranger, whose mouth had taken a louring set.

"Bersa," Veylin confessed gruffly, "is a moderate fellow."  Must he allow that not all of the bitter stories told of Dwarvish avarice were lies, before the Man?  "Others are poor craftsmen, seeking any employment."

"Unhandy Dwarves?" Saelon exclaimed, passing over what was more shameful.  "Can there be such a thing?"

"Perhaps not what you would consider unhandy," Oski said, with admirable tact, "though not all are equally gifted.  Ale, Dírmaen?" he asked, offering the skin.

The Longbeard had always viewed the Ranger more favorably than the rest of his company: Veylin remembered the two of them playing _tafl_ as the troll-spears were reshafted to fit the Men before they set out to slay the fiends.  But Dírmaen shook his head, rejecting the token of good-will.

Cursed Man!  Let him shut up his wry mouth all the time, if he could not keep peace.  He must expect a sharp reply when he gibed.  "If you have some pressing need," Veylin proposed to Saelon, "I can ask Haki to oblige you.  Nordri and Bersi jostle for his time, now that he is the only ironmaster among us, but as you say, your wants are small things.  I had hoped," he gave a vexed sigh, "that Skani would remain, when Vitnir returned to Sulûnduban."

"Skani is Vitnir's prentice, is he not?"  Though her question was for him, Saelon's gaze rested uneasily on the Ranger before going to Oski and Thyrð, then back to him again.  "Do not prentices follow their master?"

"So long as they feel he has something to teach them."  Men arranged such matters differently, he had heard, binding youths for a fixed term whether they were quick to learn or no.  Veylin did not see how such a practice encouraged application.  Why should a youngster be keen, when neither diligence nor skill would shorten their servitude?  "Of the two, I would give my custom to Skani, if he set up his own forge."  What kept the lad at Vitnir's beck and call?  Had his cousin's meanness prevented him from acquiring the means to furnish a workshop?  Surely Skaði would assist his son in his craft . . . unless he wished to preserve the connection Skani's prenticeship gave him to Veylin's heir.

Veylin frowned.  The suspicion of intrigue gnawed confidence as rust ate iron.  Perhaps it was as well that he was returning to the mansion.  He would make an opportunity to talk to Skani, privately, and offer him an independent share in Gunduzahar--and favorable terms on the coin to equip a forge, if that was the hindrance.  Could Skani but master the secret of sea-steel . . . .  "I will do what I can to convince him," he assured Saelon, "when I am in Sulûnduban.  He would be glad of an excuse to come and drink your ale, I believe."

"When do you go?" Saelon asked.

"A few days."  After losing weeks to worry over lurking brigands and searching Elves, he hoped to finish tracing this vein and the one that crossed it near the pretty little cascade before he left.  Regin had asked that he return early enough to resolve quarrels before the quarter court, but stipulated no particular day.  There were nearly three weeks yet, and unless the weather turned absolutely foul, he could be at the mansion in three days.  How many disputes could have arisen in two months?  He would like to return with a good handful of rain-stones on offer, further proof of the variety of wealth in this land.

"And when will you return?"

Such direct questions . . . .  "Not long after the middle of Lothron, unless my peoples' affairs are wretchedly awry."  He would be urged to stay and keep Midsummer with his kindred . . . but Auð rumbled that it was not right for the Men to host them regularly without return.  The longest day was spoken of as a fitting occasion to repay them, since fair weather would favor entertaining on the broad head of the hill, preserving the security of the halls within.  If the feast came off, he must not miss it.  "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Saelon said, suddenly conscious.  "Forgive me: I did not mean to pry."  Taking the cloth that had served as their board, she gave it a vigorous shake.

Preparing to go?  "You have not offended," Veylin assured her, frowning in concern.  Had her curiosity truly been mere idleness, forgetful familiarity, or had there been a purpose behind it, one she did not like to confess?  "Should you require our aid," he hazarded, "do not hesitate to send word.  The others remain, and Rekk or Bersi or Nordri will assist you."  Or answer to him when he returned.

Dírmaen chose to resent his presumption.  "Do you have some reason to expect trouble?  That we could not deal with ourselves?"

We?  "No.  Yet you will be leaving soon, will you not, and Randir with you?"

"You think us neglectful?"

Had that not been the root of their falling-out?  Veylin schooled temper and voice.  "How should I judge Men?"  By the time he returned from Sulûnduban, the Rangers should be gone.  There was no profit in a parting squabble.  "Yet I would have the Lady know that if she is in need, Dwarves are at her service."

"For a price."  The Man made that sound base.

Veylin gazed on him with candid dislike.  "I have never pretended otherwise."

"While I have?"

"Dírmaen!" Saelon stared at the Man, baffled, angry.  "What is between you, that you should twist Veylin's words so?"

When the Ranger, eyes cast down and bare mouth locked tight, did not answer, she looked to him, eyes stormy as the sea.  "Will you tell me, then?  I do not like being fought over, like a bitch between two dogs."

Her crudeness made his face burn.  "I beg you, Saelon; do not make such comparisons.  It is shameful to speak in such a way.  Folk will misunderstand."

"How is your wrangling any different?  It was bad enough when only the three of us could hear, but now--" the savage sweep of her hand took in his nephew and Oski "--you do not scruple to squabble before others.  I would like to preserve what little reputation I have left!  Why," she demanded of Dírmaen, who had begun the quarrel, "do you give way to such malignant jealousy?  You must know it does more to harden my heart than any words Veylin could say."

"I have no place," Dírmaen muttered, still not meeting her eye, "not even in your conversation.  It is hard.  I hope you will forgive me."

"Why should I?  Despite my displeasure, you display it again and again.  The whole of the morning we have talked, most companionably, and you grudge an hour to my friend?  Let me say it again," she rolled on, ruthless as the battering sea, "my friend, and no more.  Veylin and I have never coupled, nor have we intrigued together against the Chieftain or Círdan.  If you still harbor any hopes of my regard, you will reconcile with him, at least enough for common civility.  I am grateful to you both for all you have done for me and mine," she declared, voice tight, "but I will not tolerate this enmity in my presence."  Standing suddenly, she jerked her packbasket up and slung it on her back.  "Good day.  Fare well on your journey to Sulûnduban, Veylin."

The four of them sat like a stock and so many stones, watching as she thrust through the may-bushes, heedless of their thorns.  When the thump of her furious tread could no longer be felt through the earth, first Oski and then Thyrð rose and began gathering up the remnants of the meal.  All they left, when they carried the bundle off to the pony's saddlebag, was the ale skin.

Veylin stared at it, fingering the smooth wood of his blackthorn stick.  The Man would not even look at him: if he followed his prentices, leaving the skin where it lay, would it stay there until it rotted?  Or would it be unfeeling to take it and leave Dírmaen with nothing?

Whatever he did would give offense.  He would not be mean.  If the Man would accept the solace of a drink, he was welcome to it.

As Veylin rose to go, Dírmaen said, low and harsh, "I do not think you have done anything with Saelon that is dishonorable."

Not trusting how his words might be received, Veylin simply nodded once in acknowledgement.  He did not like the Man, but he pitied him.  The Ranger did not admire Saelon properly, yet his desire seemed enduring and his jealousy heart-felt.  To burn for a jewel one saw every day, but could not possess . . . .

"You will look after her, will you not?" Dírmaen grated as he turned to leave.

Veylin glanced back at that spare, severe face.  "So far as she will allow me."

That got a humorless laugh.  "So far as she will allow."

The desolation on the Man's face was so bleak Veylin risked, "She kept herself for many years; her brother bestowed his people upon her.  Why do you not trust her judgment?"

"Because she puts no faith in the Dúnedain."

Veylin grunted.  An honest answer, and a hard one.  Who broke faith first, he wondered.

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Notes

**Viressë** : Westron/Common Speech (from Quenya), April.

**Green cheese** : what the moon is made of.  ; )  "Green" in the sense of new or fresh rather than color; an uncured soft cheese such as cream or cottage cheese.

**Custom** : in this sense, the regular patronage of customers.

**Rain-stone** : a blue-grey variety of topaz.  A term of my invention.


	24. Ensnaring Women

_If I were asked . . . to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women._

\--Alexis de Tocqueville, _Democracy in America_

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The next day, Saelon went down to the shore for shellfish and weed.  Hanadan accompanied her, lugging the pails for her harvest with manly pride.

Dírmaen watched them cross the machair, careless of wind-flung spits of rain, beneath low, dark-bellied clouds, then sought out Gaernath to ask the use of Coll.  He ought to have fetched Mada a week, a fortnight ago, when his strength began to return, instead of leaving him idle while he dallied about the country in Saelon's train.  Let Randir say what he would about late-lying snows in the heights and burns in spate: he was fit to cross the mountains.  Argonui had said he did not want to see him until Spring Day, and that was now past.

He ought never to have come back.

There was a dour peace in his ride to the glen of pools through the soft gloom, the first touch of spring's fresh green muted beneath streaming cloud.  How long had it been since he was alone?  So long ago as his ride to answer Halgorn's call from Srathen Brethil?  Weeks; months, nearly all in Saelon's company.

No doubt she had taken him about with her out of duty at first . . . but he had not required her close attention as a healer for many days now.  She might have claimed others as escort, if she chose.  She had not.  Until today, he was the one she asked to accompany her, whenever she wandered abroad.

Oh, why had he let himself be drawn by that patronizing Dwarf, complacent as if he had already gone?

Yet he had already gone, once; given Saelon up.  How could the presumption that he would leave her again give offense?

He ought never to have left.

Round and round his disordered thoughts went, like a blind nag bound to a mill.  By the time he reached the broad pools in the lower end of the vale, he was as dismal as the grizzling sky.  Even the new foals, for all their gawky charm, peering out at him beneath their dams' bellies, did not lift his heart.  This was the wrong herd; the geldings and colts must be further up the glen.

Pulling his dripping hood down to keep the rain from his eyes, Dírmaen set Coll to a trot.  The sooner he found Mada, the sooner he could go home.

Home.  Where was that?  Not the snug hall at Habad.  Nor the chill of the lonely house kept for him in Tum Melui.  The only place for him was the road, and a Ranger's bed, where he would be no drier than he was now.

The whole world was colorless grey, the thrum of rain deadening all sound, so Dírmaen started when his mount suddenly shied.  "Hai!  Did you not hear me call out?" Randir exclaimed.

Where had he sprung from?  "No."  How had he missed him, even though his cloak was but a darker patch of grey?

"Single-minded beast," his fellow scoffed good-naturedly.  "Come and get out of this wet!  There is a scrap of shelter over here, and Finean says the rain will soon blow over."

It was the merest scrap, a great solitary stone with a bit of an overhang, eked out by the early leaves of a shrubby willow, but there was room enough for the three of them, shoulder to shoulder.  "What brings you this way?" Randir asked after Finean's laconic greeting, as Dírmaen arranged his cloak so the wet would stream away from their seat.  "Did my report of the new black finally rouse your passion for fine horseflesh?  Or have you come to make sure I am not spoiling that feisty young bay?"

Yes; on the days when he did not ride the bounds, Randir usually came here to help with Saelon's horses.  There was too much work for one man, he said: three sturdy hobbler colts and as many fillies, plus two high-bred fillies and the bay colt that had besotted him, four of them of an age to be bitted and backed.  "I came to get Mada."

Randir grinned.  "He will be glad to see you.  But you cannot leave without seeing the Mariner."

"The Mariner?"

"Gwath's foal--the black, with a fine white star."

Dírmaen snorted softly, wondering who had given the beast such a pretentious name.  "I caught a glimpse of him as I passed the mares."

"Oh, he is worth a much longer look!  It will do your heart good, I am sure."

It would take more than a winsome young beast to lighten his heart, but Dírmaen nodded to spare himself further cajoling.  Randir rattled on, giving him the particulars of each foal and beast whose training was in hand, while Finean sat twisting supple withies into a headstall.  Gusts of wind lashed the stone with willow branches; the rain's grey pall crept across the glen, hissing and spitting on their boots.

The downpour passed, finally.

The cheery patter of his friend, however, did not abate.  When Dírmaen stepped out into the last dashes of rain, Randir followed as a matter of course, to guide him to the gelding herd . . . and, no doubt, sing more praises of the young bay.

They had a fair way to go--that prince of horses was old enough to vex the reigning king--their saddles as sodden as their mounts, and it took some time to find the beasts, the rain having made a mire of their tracks.  Yet when they discovered them sheltering amongst the alders about the burn, Dírmaen was not baffled by their rain-darkened coats.  Recognizing the cock of a hind that had not made it into the thicket, he whistled and swung down from Coll.

Mada's head popped up through the first tender green leaves, ears pricked and swiveling.  Dírmaen whistled again, and the gelding whinnied in reply.  The beast's efforts to get quickly out of the scrubby trees was almost comic, though once disentangled, the sight of him coming at a canter was what brought a smile to Dírmaen's face.

Even wet, with his winter coat coming out in patches, the gelding looked very well; he appeared to have put on a little flesh, even though Randir had taken him out on patrol occasionally, for exercise and to rest his own steed.  When Mada pulled up, nostrils wide to scent him, Dírmaen blew back, and was rewarded with a welcoming butt from that shaggy head.  Snorting softly at such nonsense, he scratched the beast's favorite spot on his forehead, then began checking him over with his hands.  As he stroked down Mada's near fore, Randir said, "He was lame for a fortnight in the off hind after our chase, but rest seems to have cured him.  I would not have ridden him if he were not entirely sound."

Dírmaen grunted as he felt the horse's pastern through his feathers.  That mad run was a blur in his mind; all he remembered clearly was the briar of fear about his heart as he crouched low over Mada's withers, racing to slay the Northman before he reached Habad, horrified that the outlaw chief made such a direct line for the place.  It was a wonder he had not foundered his mount, driving him breakneck across the treacherous footing of the peat hags.

Mada whuffled in his hair, breath warm.

Having satisfied himself that he had done no permanent harm to the good beast and rubbed the worst of the mud from his back and belly with a grass wisp, he turned back to Coll, unbuckling the saddle girth.  "So," Randir asked cheerfully, "you are ready to take your turn on patrol?"

"I am ready to return to Arnor."  When his fellow did not immediately reply, Dírmaen glanced his way and found his smile dimmed.  "Do you not think it is time we left?"

"Are you fit enough?" Randir pressed, his long face dubious.  "You were very ill, and have been afoot less than a month.  Your arm has still not regained its strength.  Would it not be better to wait a little longer?"

Such coddling irked him greatly.  "If I am fit enough to beat the bounds, I am fit enough to cross them.  My arm will regain strength through use, not dawdling about here."  With an effort, he heaved the saddle off Coll.  "Besides, we may be needed--we get no news here."

"Partalan was just here," Randir scoffed.  "If there was need of us, Hanend would have sent word, or been withdrawn himself.  There is rarely much trouble at this season, as you know well, and should there be any, it would be better that you were well able to meet it."

"I am not an invalid," Dírmaen growled, hoisting his burden onto Mada's back, feeling the burning weakness where the outlaw chief had cut him.

"I did not say that you were!" Randir protested.  "Why are you so eager to leave this place?  Do not tell me you pine to sleep out in the spring rains."

"I am sick of being useless.  I want work."

"Then come and lend a hand with the colts, and take a turn on patrol.  There is plenty to do here."

"Guarding these people is not our duty."  He tugged the girth tight; perhaps too tight, for Mada gave a reproachful snort and shifted his feet.

Randir stared at him strangely.  "Come," he said, as Dírmaen loosed the strap a notch, "they are our kin, even if they are recalcitrant--or at least the Lady and her niece are, and the boy.  How can you be so hard of heart?"

"I am as I find."

His friend seemed taken aback by such terse bitterness, frowning disapprovingly on him.  "That is not very gallant, after all the Lady's tenderness towards you."

Tenderness?  "What does gallantry have to do with it?" Dírmaen snapped.  Had his carefully concealed infatuation been discovered?

"Courtesy and care are a woman's due," Randir reminded him, with earnest gravity.  "How else can we repay them for their many pains?  And these have borne more than their share.  Have you ever seen their like, for courage and fortitude?  Or even heard of such, save in the old tales?"

"Once or twice," Dírmaen answered dryly.  It had been hardly more than a hundred years since Orcs last made forays into Eriador: his grandmother had captained the defense of Gellnen against a band that ravaged the North Downs while the men battled the larger horde near Fornost.

Randir gave a crooked, deprecating grin.  "All right--perhaps there are a few, here in the west.  We have less blood of the old kings in Cardolan.  Yet I will not believe it is so common that you would scorn these ladies of Srathen Brethil, humbled though they have been by their hard fate.  Are they not a credit to their royal stock?"

Humbled?  Clearly his friend had spent little time in Saelon's company.  "To be sure."  The line of Elros had always been masterful . . . on occasion, too much so.

"As well as lovely and mild," Randir's praise rolled on, a softer smile playing about his lips.

"You cannot," Dírmaen declared, heart clenching in alarm, "be speaking of the Lady."

His friend broke out in a hearty laugh.  "No, I would not call her mild--though my great-aunt is worse!  I suppose I have given myself away," he confessed, half-sly, as Dírmaen continued to stare doubtfully.  "I am rather taken with Rian."

"Rian?"  The band about his breast loosened.  "She is too young to wed."

"A little . . . but is she not a beauty?  And so gracious, despite the many burdens on her time and temper!  She will never vex her husband about trifles of housekeeping.  I believe," Randir said hopefully, "that she inclines to me, or begins to.  If I could be sure of her attachment, I should not mind waiting a few years.  Much," he added, grin returning.

That would explain why he was so agreeable to Saelon; he wished her to look favorably on his suit.  "You will have to have her brother's good will, as well as the Lady's."

"I must have Rian's, first!" Randir reminded him.  "So would it not be best to give your arm a few more weeks to recover its strength?  Truly, I do not doubt that you are fit to make the journey across the mountains, but I would not be easy in my mind if you went alone."

Weeks.  As Dírmaen weighed his many debts to his friend against his own conflicting desires, Randir's suasive smile waned.  "I hope I am not afoul of your own chase, brother," he finally said, gravely.

"No!" Dírmaen hastened to assure him.  "No--Rian is a fine girl, very fine.  I wish you well."

Randir looked no easier of mind.  "Then whence comes this hesitation and ill mood?  Does your wound break out again?"

Yes; but not the wound he meant.  "I have angered the Lady.  You will have to decide whether my remaining will aid your suit: I cannot judge."

"What have you done?"

How was he to answer, without exposing Saelon or making light of their differences?  "Disagreed with Veylin.  We came across him yesterday, but it is an old quarrel," he explained.  "His counsels have ever run counter to mine, and I have rebuked her for preferring them."

Randir snorted softly.  "Is that why you left?  You should know better than to try and come between fast friends . . . strange though such a friendship seems.  How do you believe Veylin has misled her?" he wondered.  "I confess I have seen little to fault in her judgment."

Turning away, Dírmaen took the lead rope from the saddle and ran a loop through it to make a halter for Coll.  "He has encouraged her to remain in Lindon, instead of returning to Srathen Brethil, or across the Lune."

"From all I have heard, that would be no great feat, her attachment to the sea being what it is."

As if that were laudable.  "She ought to be attached to her own kin and kind."

"How can you say she is not?" Randir rebuked him.  "Rian will hear nothing against her, and the Edain are well content.  Have you ever known folk love a lord who did not care for them?  Here--" he reached down for the lead rope "--I will hold him while you bridle Mada.  Nor does the Chieftain seem wroth, since he has not recalled us."

Argonui had said he wished someone posted here, where Men and Dwarves and Elves were coming together.  Perhaps Randir would be better suited than he . . . if his liking for Rian did not blind him.  "He expects they will return to Srathen Brethil, in time--but you have seen how the Dwarves have laboured to establish them here, to serve their own ends."

"Which are?  How can I share your suspicions, if you do not tell me what they have done to rouse them?"

What had the Dwarves done, that he could complain of?  Their trespass was against Lindon, which chose to stay its hand; they took food out of these folk's mouths, but had provided the plow that prepared the field.  "I do not know!  They are secretive folk, and will not say.  Why not, if their business is honest?"

His friend gazed down on him, thoughtfully grave.  "Is that not their nature: tight-fisted and taciturn?"

"You were at the Tuilérë feast--do you call that taciturn?"

Randir smiled, fondly reminiscent.  He had danced much to their music that evening, often with Rian.  "I suppose not."

He did not take his reservations seriously; he did not care.  Tearing up a fistful of wet grass, Dírmaen scrubbed fiercely at Coll's bit.  "Or ever heard of a Dwarf that gave a pin for friendship, let alone a great gaudy gem?"  Timely news to a friend, Saelon had explained it, when he found Veylin putting the sea-jewel into her hand among the shadows, last harvest; showed him his way to his heart's desire, was the Dwarf's defense.  What could Saelon know of that would profit the dwarf-lord so much?  If the exchange was upright, why had they been so surreptitious?

"Gem?"  Randir stared at him.  "The Lady's jewel came from Veylin?  I thought it an heirloom of her house."

He had said too much.  Feeling astray amidst a treacherous bog, Dírmaen shook his head and gave all his attention to the necessary adjustments of the bridle.

"What ails you, man?" his fellow demanded.  "That you are close-lipped, I knew; but never that you were mealy-mouthed.  Why will you not tell me plain, if you know something to their discredit?  Are you in love with the woman, and seek to shift blame on the Dwarf?"

The wet strap twisted, jamming in the buckle, and Dírmaen stopped, fearing to tear the leather, face burning with mortification.  The wind murmured in the alder leaves; Mada shifted his feet restlessly.

"Are you?"

Dírmaen nodded, staring at the bridle.

His friend's saddle creaked.  "That is why you drove us at such a pace, after the outlaws."  One could almost hear the pieces coming together in his mind.

"Yes."

"Does she know?"

Another nod, his heart too clenched for speech.

"And spurned you?"

Randir's tone was aggrieved rather than pitying, and Dírmaen hastened explain.  "We have often quarreled, as I said, and I am graceless with women, I find.  Nor," he sighed, shaking his head, " is there anything she needs from a man."

"Credit she deserves for dealing with the first outlaws to find them," Randir riposted, "yet she certainly required assistance with the rest."

"Would she, if we had not driven them from the oakwood?  Or from Srathen Brethil?"

His friend's eye was rather too much like Saelon's, when gauging his fever.  "If you must find fault with yourself, remember that you had no part in the last.  She is a valiant and noble woman," he granted, more sympathetically, "but is she not somewhat . . . ripe for courting?"

"That is what she says," Dírmaen muttered, picking carefully at the fouled cheekpiece.

Randir left him be until he had set it straight and bridled his horse, yet once he was mounted, observed, "I should never have guessed she misliked you, seeing how often you are in company together.  Has she refused you outright, or is she but testing your devotion?"

Heart and conscience panged him.  Saelon had obliged him by giving over her solitary rambles; even more, by choosing him as her companion.  And how had he repaid her?  "No, she has not absolutely dismissed me.  Yet she gives scant heed to my counsel, and requires me to keep peace with the Dwarf."

"Your honor will not permit that?"

There was an air of delicacy in Randir's question that put an edge on his reply.  "The intrigues I suspect are those one finds between a great lord, old in cunning, and any heir ill-prepared for office and new-come to their estate--not those between man and woman.  At the least, they are in league against Gwinnor of Lindon, his rival gemsmith.  Yet that is a trifle beside his aspersions against the Chieftain.  How am I to stomach that?"  Turning Mada's head downstream, he gave him a touch of his heels.

Frowning as he fell in beside, his fellow Ranger asked, "What has he said?"

"He is forever harping upon our neglect of these folk: deliberate, he claims, meant to force them across the Lhûn, where they would be landless beggars, living at the sufferance of others."

"I have not heard him say as much," Randir murmured, "though there was ample opportunity, once the outlaws were dispatched.  Still, how much weight would such words carry with the Lady?  She is determinedly self-reliant--not unnatural, in one who dwelt long alone--and has openly forsworn any claim to our aid, or Lindon's.  The Dwarves' efforts she has scrupulously repaid."

"Is that not what they desire, to batten on her gratitude?"

Randir rubbed his chin.  "It cuts both ways, I think.  Some grumble over her generosity, feeling they begin to be in her debt."

Was that not his own predicament?  He had done Saelon a service, and found he was the one beholden for kindness . . . belying his accusations of coldness.  "What can one offer such a woman, who needs little and reckons obligation to a nicety?"

"Need is not the same as want," his friend observed.  "Cannot you play upon her desires?"

"All she desires," Dírmaen said bitterly, "is peace and freedom."

"Who does not?  Surely, though, there are other things she would like, more within your reach."

He did not understand her; had not seen her native austerity.  "She would like a coracle to go to sea in."

Randir looked blank for a moment, then laughed.  "That I can see.  Why do you not make her one?"

"And help her drown herself?"

"Wherever did you get such an opinion of her?" Randir exclaimed.  "It is a wonder she survived so long without a keeper."

That was too near what Veylin had said.  "Besides, I know almost nothing of such craft."

His friend cocked a brow at him.  "I have always heard you described as a man of resource and sagacity."

Dírmaen snorted.  "It is futile.  What can I give her that is of any consequence, beside the generosity of a gemsmith?"

"Who woos a woman with things of consequence?  A song--a rose--a pretty pup, or a brace of plump partridges."

Dírmaen grunted.  That was the ordinary way of things, yet such seemed too trifling for Saelon's desserts, or the depth of his feeling.  Though she dearly loved partridge, which were uncommon here.  "That will do nothing to reconcile me with Veylin."

"If you think he wishes to supplant the Dúnedain in her affections, why accommodate him by abandoning the field?  If she is worth your love, she must be worth fighting for."

"That is what has angered her.  She objects to being quarreled over."

Randir gave him a long-suffering look.  "So you must eschew open battle . . . yet what is new in that?  You are a Ranger, are you not?"

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Notes

**"blind nag bound to a mill"** : in some areas, particularly where there were no streams suitable for running water-powered mills, horses or other animals were used to turn the grindstones.

**Backed** : taught to accept a saddle and rider.


	25. Another Man's Meat

_'Tis not the meat, but 'tis the appetite  
_ _Makes eating a delight_

\--John Suckling, "Of Thee, Kind Boy"

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"Ailig!  Come back here!" Muirne cried out, between despair and resignation.

Saelon looked up from thinning peas to see the tow-headed child scamper by in pursuit of her flapping and fussing geese, crowing with delight.  "Leave him be," she reassured his harried mother, who halted by the garden with a grimace as the babe in her arms tugged on one of her blonde braids.  "He will do no harm: those that are laying have found quieter places to nest."  The worst that might happen, if Ailig chanced to catch one, was that he would get a shrewd peck and learn to respect the birds.

Muirne heaved a weary sigh as she pried Dornach's plump fingers from her hair.  "Bless you, Lady.  I cannot imagine how I am to manage when this imp begins to walk."

Pursing her lips, Saelon bent back to her task, pinching out another tender shoot.  Usually Murdag and Unagh--and Rian--were only too glad to watch over and play with the babes, a welcome break from their chores, but now that their daughter was born Murdag and Leod had gone to Maelchon's, and Unagh gave half her day to her sister.  Which had thrown more work on those of them who remained.  "Tearlag is no help?"

"No, sweeting--do not chew on Mama's hair.  Oh, a great help with her spindle and needle," the young wife hastened to say, though she would not meet Saelon's eye.  "Ailig grows so fast!  Yet," she murmured, "I begin to wonder if she has taken ill."

Saelon straightened up, wiping her hands on the worn wool of her skirts.  "In what way?"  Muirne's gentle soul shrank from complaint, but the serving woman remained a burden, her ravaged spirit continuing to ebb.  She was unwilling to leave the hall . . . .  Had she taken Dírmaen's lung-fever?  If so, she must be moved away from the babes.

"I do not know, but I found her retching over the slop-bucket this morning."

Frowning, Saelon wondered what the woman could have eaten that did not agree with her.  They were little troubled by stomach complaints here, save when the lads did fool things like gorging on cockles straight from the shell in the heat of summer.  Not the buckies she had brought from the shore yesterday: Tearlag did not like sea foods.  Yet Muirne may have prepared a separate dish for her family.  "None of the rest of you were taken ill, in the night or this morning?"

Morning . . . .  How many moons had it been, since the reivers fell upon them?

Muirne shook her head.  "No.  And she had no more than a bowl of milk and a few morsels of bannock for supper.  Nothing to break her fast.  She eats less every day."  Shifting Dornach uneasily to the crook of her other arm, she asked, in an awful hush, "Can she mean to starve herself?"

"I do not know."  Saelon had hoped time would heal what she could not.  "Let me go to her, and see what is amiss."

Though the day was very fine, bright and mild and green as Gwirith could be, washed clean by yesterday's rain, Saelon found Tearlag alone in Artan and Muirne's chamber--the only body in all the hall--on the floor in a far corner with her back against the chill white stone.  Grey she looked, in the wan light of a single dip; grey and ghastly, as if her shade already dwelt beyond.  There was a spindle in her hand, but it was still; the fear-haunted eyes she raised at the opening of the door were bruised with sleeplessness, swollen with weeping.

Saelon went and settled down beside her, taking the hand that did not hold the spindle and cradling it in hers, stroking its sere skin with her thumb.  "Muirne says you have no stomach for your meat," she said quietly, when they had sat so a while.  "What new woe is this?"

Slow tears were her only answer.

How near they had all come to this!  Yet the woman's oppression was too dreadful for long patience.  "Are you with child?"

Tearlag's shoulders heaved, her thin body racked as the first sobs broke, rising to a thin, keening cry.

What could be done, but hold her close and rock her as if she were a suffering babe?  This was an affliction too great for words.  When the serving woman had wept herself--too quickly--to exhaustion, Saelon put her to bed and went across the hall to her own chamber for another blanket and a sleeping draught.  Rest would do something; perhaps she should take Tearlag into her own chamber, away from Artan's rumbustious sons.  A dish of muggins might whet her appetite: there was a fine patch of plants on the ledge of the other cliff, near the Dwarves' quarry.

As she sat before her kist, sorting through pouches and packets of simples--henbane was too potent for one so worn, bloodwort too mild; borage for courage would not go amiss; where had the knobby heads of the corn poppies gone?--Saelon's hand paused on the pennyroyal.  That would soothe Tearlag's heaving gorge, but not so well as watermint, which grew thickly along the edges of the river.  The creeping, small-leaved mint did not thrive here; it would be better to preserve what she had, since it was more valuable for lung complaints, and Dírmaen had drunk half her store.  Besides, one did not give it to women who were carrying . . . .

Saelon drew her hand back as if she had brushed a torpid adder, the memory of the herb's somewhat bitter taste strong on her tongue, and turned to the other end of the kist, determined to find the poppy.  Sleep first; then the muggins and some beef broth.  Other remedies could come later, if required, when the poor woman was not half out of her wits with famishment and despair.

She had been carrying the pennyroyal with her, that day; for Gràinne's failing lungs.  Why had she not thought to dose Tearlag then, as a preventative?  As her grandmother had when--

Because Dírmaen had been bleeding his life away before her, and her head still ringing from the blows the reivers had dealt her.

There!  The poppies--seldom used--were buried in the back corner, beneath the the kings-cup.  Disentangling them, Saelon busied herself with compounding Tearlag's draught.  Then a piece of brined beef must be set to soak, and the potherbs fetched . . . .

With one thing and another, and interruptions--always, there were interruptions--she did not get away to pick the muggins until the sun was well down in the sky; from the cliff-foot, she could see its light glint off the placid sea.  On her way back down the slope, she passed the stubble of last year's small plots of wheat and oats--if she did not get the seed saved from the tempest-blasted stalks in the ground soon, there would be no time for the ears to mature, and Veylin's gift would be wasted.

Walking along the edge of the bere-field, she caught up her drover, carefully carrying pails of milk home, the dark bog-wood yoke bowing his wiry shoulders.  "Good even, Canand," she greeted him.  "How do the cattle fare?"

"I dinna know how ye coud ask for better, Lady," he replied, giving her a gap-toothed grin and a slight shrug of his shoulders, to draw attention to the brimming pails.  "Sich land for kye I hae never seen."

"Where are you grazing them?"

"Ach, up the strand a bit, though I bring them back as night draws in.  They are juist over the headland now.  Still," he sighed, "I wad I had a good dog to keep watch ower them."

"There are no wolves, hereabouts," Saelon pointed out, with a sideways glance, "and foxes do not trouble kine.  Nor do I think a dog would have fared better than Fokel against the reivers."

"Mebbe not.  But it wad be some company."  They walked together in silence for a while, until they reached the foot of the track; then he halted, squaring the yoke to face her.  "Lady," he said, in his plain way, "ye know I was courting Tearlag afore the reivers came.  Wad she welcome me, d'ye think, were I to begin agane?"

Saelon regarded him closely.  "You know the villains treated her grievously."

"No need to mince words wi' me," the drover came gruffly back.  "They swived her.  I didna want to plague her while she was still raw, but she shouldna think I willna hae her."

Did Tearlag's despond well from her despoilment, believing no man would now have her, save for passing pleasure?  She had been assiduously courted this last year, and while wedding a cottar would spare her no work, any husband would increase her dignity.  At least she would drudge for her own man and babes, not another's.

Or had she taken a horror to men, so that she could not bear one even if he would have her?  And what of that devil's spawn, quickening in her womb?  Would Canand be so ready to take her, if there was a cuckoo in the nest?  "I do not know," Saelon answered, with a heavy sigh.  "That day still haunts her, and her spirit is slow to mend.  I do not see any harm in trying, but do not take it to heart if she is unwelcoming."

"Na, na," the drover assured her.  "She has been sore usit.  O' coorse she is skerrit.  So I hae yer blessing?"

"Heartily, if you can comfort her. Yet wait until tomorrow, or the next day: a touch of illness has put her further out of humour."

"Ye will set her t' rights," Canand said, with the phlegmatic complacence of his bovine charges.  "I will bide."

He came behind as they climbed the track, it being narrow and the yoke with its burden making him broad, turning off towards her cave--which presently served as their dairy--when they reached the cliff-shelf.  Saelon heard Unagh greet him as she went on to the hall with her own harvest.  There she found Rian and Muirne talking quietly across the hearth as they prepared the supper bannocks.

"Is there enough for brewing as well as for Tearlag?" Rian asked, peering into her basket as she joined them.

"Whose tastes would you suit?"  Saelon preferred heather and wood pease for flavoring ale, but Rian, following her mother, liked the bitterness of muggins.

Her niece smiled.  "That depends on how much you found, so early in the season.  Oh, I must not forget," she interrupted herself, pointing with her chin towards a bundle of sacking on the board.  "Dírmaen has brought you something."

"What is it?" Saelon regarded the shapeless thing with a wary eye, as she handed her basket over to Muirne.  "Here.  Seethe as much of this as you think she will eat in the beef broth.  If she takes none, fetch me."

"He did not say."  Rian plucked up a nicely-browned bannock from the baking stone, and Muirne filled its place with a fresh round of dough.  "He merely begged that you receive it promptly."

Begged?  She had shunned him since he mortified her before Veylin and his prentices.  Last night he was nowhere to be seen, but his brown gelding, long out on pasture, was stabled in the byre-cave, groomed to a high gloss . . . .  Was this a parting gift, payment of some fancied indebtedness that would clear his conscience and free him to depart?  Surely it could not be anything unpleasant, an expression of spleen.  If Dírmaen wished to rebuke her, he did not fear to speak forthrightly.

Still, Saelon felt a strange reluctance as she went to take up the bundle.  What was there to dread?  She had known he would leave.  She was obstinate in disobedience to the Chieftain; he was the Chieftain's man.  He was needed in Arnor, and she had repeatedly, publicly, disavowed any dependence.  Yet the man had almost nothing beyond horse and gear of war and what fit into a set of saddlebags; less than she had owned in her days of blessedly simple solitude.  He could ill spare to part with any of his possessions.

There was a dead limpness to what lay within the cloth that brought other qualms back, briefly.  Then, as she turned the coarse sacking back, she saw feathers: the ruddy bars and dark breast horseshoe of partridge.

"What is it?" Rian asked, as Saelon stared at the birds, mute with surprise; so mute she simply lifted the brace of cocks out of their wrappings for her niece to see.  However had Dírmaen come by them?  He had no hawk, no fowler's net--

"Partridge!" Rian exclaimed, coming over to examine them.  "I did not know there were any here."

"A few, on the machair some leagues south."  Shy birds, that she had seldom spotted and never been able to capture.

Was that a gleam of arch speculation in her niece's eye?  "Such a handsome present!  Does he know they are a favorite of yours?"

"I may have mentioned it."  She had: not long after he first arrived.  He had brought in some grouse, and she had wished they were partridge, for she had had none since the last Yule spent with her brother in Srathen Brethil . . . three and a half years ago now.

Rian drew them from her hands.  "Let me see to them.  They come too late for supper, but will make a nice dish for your dinner tomorrow.  I remember how you like them."

"Thank you," Saelon murmured, though she wondered if she would be able to savor them properly.  "Do you know where I might find Dírmaen, so I may thank him as well?"

Her niece shook her head.  "No.  He went back out, after entrusting these to me."

He must be in the byre-cave, tending his horse.  Yet when she peered in, she saw only Mada, already sleek, ears pricked to the sound of other horses approaching.

"Lost somethin', Lady?" Airil asked as she stepped back out, from the bench where he sat in the sun, weaving withies into a creel for the pack beasts.

Looking along the cliff-shelf, Saelon thought that every man that belonged to the place was there . . . except the one she sought.  Randir and Gaernath were dismounting after their day with the hounds, passionately discussing the virtues and vices of various dogs.  Teig and Finean stood, heads together, over a rent leash, while Canand rinsed the milk pails with water from the spring.  Artan, stacking freshly cut peats to dry near the hall door, paused to greet his elder son, tossing the crowing child up and catching him before bussing his cheek.  "Did you see which way Dírmaen went?"

"Ach," the old man answered dismissively, waving a knobby-knuckled hand towards the south end of the cliff-shelf, where the boys were wearing a track up the steep way to the ruined tower, "he has flown awa' to his high perch."

"Thank you, Airil."

She had not taken this way to the tower since last autumn: it was a treacherous path even when the ground was tolerably dry, but the sun would set before she could go roundabout.  Forunately, there was plenty of tussocky grass and heather to seize where there was slick mud underfoot, and the slope so severe that one hardly needed to bend to do so.

Taking care to be silent as she approached the summit, Saelon peered through the grasses along the lip.  For a breath, she thought Dírmaen must be within the tumbled ring of stones, or on the other side, but then he raised an arrow to check the straightness of its shaft.  The plainness of his clothes suited the crottle-covered stone and faded wisps of last year's grass, tall here where no beasts grazed.  So still a man, and so quiet!  No wonder he was an excellent Ranger, valued by his comrades as well as Coruwi.

Who else would have vexed her so little, while accompanying her on her lengthy forays after herbs?  For until they met Veylin, she had had no complaint.

True, she had taken him with her as part of his cure, at first: he had been perilously low after his long incapacity, loathing his weakness so much that he was unwilling to do anything that made him feel it.  One did not defeat debility through idleness, however, and she had not scrupled to use his custodial sensibilities to shift him.

Yet it was equally true that she had been glad of a companion, for her security had been wounded as gravely as his body.  She did not fear to venture forth alone if she must, but her vigilance was now whetted to such a degree that the pleasure--the freedom--of solitude was sadly diminished.  Some companion was desirable . . . and Dírmaen had suited very well, once his strength began to return.  He was content to walk in silence as long as she pleased, not breaking in upon her thought; and while it had taken some effort to bring him to conversation when she believed his brooding morbid, his speech had gradually grown more natural, use wearing his unease away.

Surely weeks under the tyranny of her untender care had cured him of his infatuation as well as his wounds.  Or so she had thought, until he bated at Veylin.  Was it jealousy, or suspicion of less carnal intrigue, that poisoned his mind against her friend?  She could not fathom how so discerning a man could imagine either.  Let her go up, and discover what the partridges were meant to convey.  With a gusty huff that might have been due to the steep climb, she clambered onto the crown of the hill.

Hastily setting aside an arrow-shaft, Dírmaen scrambled to his feet likewise.  He started forward as if to offer his hand . . . then halted, hesitant as a hound that had been rebuked for chasing hares.

"Please, do not let me interrupt your work," Saelon urged, disliking the awkwardness of his attitude.  He had such a spare grace, now that he moved easily again.  "The light will not last much longer.  I only wish to thank you for the partridges."

Eyes already cast down, he bent his high head further.  "You need not.  My conduct the other day was unpardonable; they are but a token of remorse."

Saelon pursed her lips.  That he was conscious of fault was an improvement, but she would rather he vowed never to mortify her so again.  She did not wish to lose her taste for partridge through a surfeit of the dainty.  "I will accept them, if you explain yourself.  In most things, I find your judgment admirably sound.  Why do you take such an exception to my friendship with Veylin?  Is it his conduct you find objectionable, or mine?"

When she began to think he would not answer, he finally said, very low, "I do not understand it, and you are peculiarly discreet."

"You do not understand how we are friends?"

"No.  Have you ever before heard of Dwarves fraternizing with those of other race?"

Staring at him, Saelon considered, casting her mind back over the tales of ancient days.  "I should not like to compare myself to Eöl.  Yet Finrod, Friend of Men, was not ashamed to be called Felagund; and were not Eregion and Khazad-dûm allies while our fathers dwelt in Númenor?  Gwinnor must have gained his knowledge of them through some confidence."

"They were all craftsmen together.  What interest do you and Veylin share?"

They had been brought together by calamity, not mutual passions.  "None, save a desire for security.  Security _here_ ," she insisted, seeing Dírmaen's mouth begin to twist.  "I do not fault you, nor the Chieftain, that there were no Dúnedain near to give us aid, no more than Veylin blames his own folk for leaving him to bleed on the moor.  If there is anything we have in common, it is our singularity: we have both strayed far from well-trodden ways."

"You have."

How severe he could be, in so few words!  "And come to our own agreements with Lindon regarding any trespass."

From the quality of his silence, Saelon knew he was not convinced the Dwarves had fully compensated the Elves.  She wished he had been stronger when Coruwi were here, so that he might have seen how matters stood between Círdan's marchwarden and Veylin for himself.  "As for my discretion, if I have been reserved in matters touching Veylin's concerns, it is not from guilt, but out of respect.  Dwarves are very close, and I take his confidence as an honor.  I am sorry that you do not trust me likewise."

His cheek still pale after his long convalescence, there was no hiding his flush.  "I have never doubted your honesty but once, Lady.  Yet it is hard to watch you walk among hazards you will not shun.  Your courage is beyond admiration . . . and, maybe, my fortitude."

Now it was her turn to blush.  "I have always been a trial to my menfolk.  Why do you think I left them?  There was less grief so.  I know," she sighed, "I cannot be so outlandish, now that I am Lady . . . but I have not yet found my way.  I hope I am less careless than I was: I ought to have heeded your cautions last year, yet I was too used to going my own way."  If--when--he left, she did not want him to think that he had bled for naught.  "I am sorry."

Dírmaen bowed his head in that grave way of his, which might have meant almost anything--that he accepted her contrition or agreed she had been unwise--and bent to gather his arrows in the fading light.  "Not so sorry as I.  Shall we go down," he asked, simply prosaic, "before it grows too dark?"

* † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * 

Notes

**Dip** : a tallow candle.

**Muggins** (also mugwort, _Artemesia vulgaris_ ): an herb used for flavoring and as a potherb, which stimulates the appetite.

**Borage** ( _Borago officinalis_ ): an herb whose bright blue flowers are steeped in wine or made into a cordial, which gave courage and gladdened the heart.

**Watermint** ( _Mentha aquatica_ ): a less-cultivated relative of spearmint and peppermint, used for many of the same medicinal and other purposes.

**Kings-cup** (also marsh marigold, _Caltha palustris_ ): a medicinal herb, also used for dyeing.

**Kye** : Scots, cattle.

**Swived** : fucked.

**"cuckoo in the nest"** : cuckoos ( _Cuculus canorus_ ) are perhaps best-known for their habit of laying eggs in the nests of other birds, who then rear the interloper's chicks.  This is a common folk metaphor for an adulterous bastard, as the word "cuckold" shows.

**Creel** : a wickerwork carrying basket.  While today most people associate creels with fish, they were less specialized in the past.


	26. Paterfamilias

_Happy the man whose wish and care_  
_A few paternal acres bound,_  
_Content to breathe his native air  
_ _In his own ground._

—Alexander Pope, _Ode on Solitude_

 * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † * † *

Pausing to admire the splendid enamelwork on the door to the king's suite, Veylin smoothed his russet beard and reached for the gilt chain of the bell-pull.  The deep, mellow peal, dimmed by intervening stone and steel, had hardly begun to fade before the massive door swung open.  "Welcome," Reykr, the younger of Regin's sons, greeted him, his bow correct without being punctilious.  "Father is in the Topaz Cabinet.  May I carry your casket for you?"

Veylin shifted his cherrywood stick back to his right hand, leaving the gold-chased and steel-strapped strongbox alone in the left.  "No, thank you."  Stepping into the brightness of the marble foyer, he considered Reykr as the lad closed the door behind him.  He was near Thyrnir's age, a little older; but unusually well dressed for a doorward, even a royal one.  "Will you be joining us for supper?"  Regin's invitation had amiably invoked kinship rather than office, and gatherings such as these, the cordial conclave of cousins, were excellent occasions for youth to learn statecraft.

"Yes," Reykr replied, inviting him to continue on with a gesture and falling in beside him when he did so.

A deft compromise between the deferential reticence his age required and a host's duty . . . which was a pleasure to see in a king's son, especially one junior to the heir.  As they entered the Great Hall of the king's household—modest in size compared to the First and Second Halls above, where all the folk of the mansion might gather, though more beautiful—one of Regin's prentices strode past them, dropping a short nod to Reykr on his way to take his post by the door.

"You are following your father in armoury, are you not?" Veylin asked.  A tedious, shopworn beginning . . . but this was the first opportunity he had had to converse with the king's son, and he would not be thought prying or over-familiar.

Staid as a _tafl_ -player moving his first piece, the lad agreed, "I am.  Reynir it is who prefers axe-craft."

Yes; he had heard some whisper amongst themselves over the heir's decision not to follow his father in every thing—to give over the opportunity to learn the making of mail from one who helped forge Belegost's never-surpassed excellence in that art—but since his own passion had run in a different vein than his father's, Veylin saw no fault in that.  "That will serve you both very well, should we see another war," he declared stoutly.  "What could be better than a brother's steel between you and your foes, whether in your hand or on your back?"

Reykr acknowledged this sagacity with a slight bow of his head.  "Whose work do you favor, in weapons?"

"My father's."  Since there was also murmuring over whom had the future king as prentice, it was good to have so virtuous a reason for denying favor to any of the living masters.  None was Vali's equal.  The work of Keypti, the best of his prentices who remained in Sulûnduban, was technically faultless but uninspired, his axes without soul; while those of Geirr, son of Vali's despised rival, were brilliant, beautiful things, as temperamental as their maker.  That Reynir should be under Geirr's tutelage was not altogether reassuring, but Geirr was of Regin's Line, and the only other master of great note was a Broadbeam.  It would never do to have the king beholden to a junior kindred.

"Might a father's work be even better than a brother's?" Reykr wondered, as they turned into the Curtal Gallery.

The lad's expression was innocuous enough, but his eye had a lively depth that Veylin would treasure in a gem: this looked to be a sly riposte rather than self-doubt.  "In some instances, doubtless.  But I have no brother; my trial was to please both mother and elder sister.  Fortunately, cloth is not so long-lived as steel."

That drew a smile from the lad, as he opened the door to the Topaz Cabinet for him.

"Ah, Veylin," Regin said, turning in his chair.  "Come in!  Was your journey from Gunduzahar agreeable?  What will you have—wine?"

"Thank you, yes.  The ways through Sunnadale and Ravenmoor are still a mire, after all the snowmelt, but otherwise it was pleasant enough."  Once past the threshold, Veylin paused to savour the chamber, which he admired exceedingly: all in the warm golden-brown of the Ered Luin's finest topazes, several of which gleamed on the mantelshelf.  Poorer stones had been cut and set in patinated bronze to sheathe the walls.  Some of it was citrine, true; but the color had been well-matched.  Seven well-upholstered seats, the ochre leather suppled by long use, were ranged about the hearth; on the left hand, the table was already set for supper, gold and crystal gleaming in the lamplight.  He had expected to see Reynir seated beside his father, but not Sút's brother.

Sút had—as was only to be expected—asked him to carry a letter to her kin.  He could not, in honor, have refused, and had dutifully sent Thyrð to deliver it as soon as they reached the mansion two days ago.  Yet it had piqued him for the whole of the journey across the mountains.  What news had she sent?  Had her letter prompted this summons to dine with the king?  There was so much she might have told that would perturb: news of the brigands, Men in the delf, her own forays to White Cliffs.  Veylin did not know how much confidence lay between her and her brother, nor even whether he would admit his sister's unconventionality.  "Well met, Godi!" he greeted the silversmith heartily, putting a bold face on his uncertainty.  "Sút gave you a favorable account of Gunduzahar, I trust."

"Indeed," the king's cousin assured him, stroking his sable beard with a smile that only deepened Veylin's doubts, "though she says there is less silver than she was led to believe."

"I have never claimed there was a quantity of silver at Gunduzahar.  A little with the copper, yes; hopes of more, certainly.  If Sút was told there was enough to supply her, that must have been my sister's doing."

Regin snorted, amused.  "There is no end to women's scheming for their own comfort.  How many are in Gunduzahar now?"

Reassured somewhat, Veylin laid strongbox and stick on a small table to hand and took the nearest vacant seat.  "Three.  Bersi's wife has joined us as well.  Thank you," he said to Reykr, as the lad handed him a brimming goblet.

"So many so soon?" Regin exclaimed, ruddy brows rising.  "It has not been three years since you set pick to stone there—has it?"

Had it truly been that short a time?  Veylin considered, goblet poised.  "It will be three years this Urimë since I first saw the place."  Three years since Thekk's death; since he first met Saelon.  Shaking his head, he drank deep of the king's good garnet wine.  "It seems longer."

"I wondered that Sút would travel to a prospector's scrape for any friendship—or weight of silver," Godi confessed, "but from her description, you are founding a considerable hall.  The rock is rich enough to warrant long habitation?"

Veylin reached for his strongbox.  "In all my travels, I have rarely seen its like.  There is little in the Ered Luin that our longfathers did not know of before us," he explained, taking the key for the lock from his pouch, "but there the sea has driven us back and gnawed the land, exposing what lay too deep for discovery.  Between our dislike of the waves and the passivity of the few Noldor who remain, treasures such as this languish in the dark."  Lifting out one of the smaller chamois bags, Veylin loosened the drawstring and slipped the peridot within into his palm.  "This is one of several found while cutting a new chamber this spring.  I brought it," he told Regin, "to see if you might wish to include it in your new chain of office."

As he started to rise to take it to the king, Regin waved him down, setting his cup aside and coming over himself.  "Fire opal, copper, cinnabar, garnet, rain-stones . . . and now peridots," he observed, taking the rough stone and holding it up to the light of the lamp.  "A fine color—though so much green will quarrel with the fire opal.  You have the chain there?  Good.  We will consider what might be done after supper."  Turning, he held the peridot out to Godi.  "Though it is not silver, I imagine a share in this would please Sút."

"There is no telling what pleases Sút," Godi replied, a complaint so worn there was no grumble left.  Balancing the gem on his fingertips, he examined it closely, lips pursed.  "Is the sea as dreadful as is said?"

"Some find it so," Veylin allowed, as a knock came at the door, "but the hall is half a league from the shore, and one need not go nearer."  Unless one wanted fire opal, or to feast with Saelon and her folk.

"There you are!" Regin called, when Reykr opened the door.  "Come, Vitnir, and see what Veylin has brought from Gunduzahar."

Surprised, Veylin twisted in his seat to look.  Sure enough, there stood his cousin and heir, dressed—overdressed—as though he had been invited to sit at the king's table for a high feast, as taken aback as himself.

At least, Veylin surmised, Regin had not invited Vitnir to sit with the privy council in his absence.

"Greetings, cousin," Vitnir said, gruff, stiff as his tunic.  "All is well at Gunduzahar?"

Conscious of the king's eye on them both—not only father in title, but Father in fact, forbear several times over—Veylin replied genially, "Very well, save a greater need for ironwork than smiths to supply it.  You and Skani are missed."  There was only a scruple of falsity in that; Skani _was_ missed.  "Lof tells me all has been quiet here.  Your trade prospers?"

"The roads were very bad this spring, and Men tightfisted after the hard winter."

Giving a short laugh, Godi drained his goblet.  "Perhaps you should return to Gunduzahar.  The Men of White Cliffs are keen to trade, Sút reports, and give good measure."

"She has traded with them?" Vitnir challenged.  "Or does she echo what others—" his gaze went to Veylin, an accusation "—say?"

Veylin set his goblet down, fearing for the crystal stem.  How could he deny the slur, without impeaching Auð and Sút?

Taking back the peridot from Godi, Regin rubbed a contemplative thumb over its smoothest face.  "Aðal tells me that the Lady of White Cliffs regularly visits Gunduzahar, often to trade, and the only person dissatisfied with her bargains is a Broadbeam who cannot get honey as cheaply as he desires.  Copper and cloth, masonry and carpentry . . . you and your brother provided the Men with a plough, did you not?" he asked Vitnir.  "Were you stinted of your fee?"

"No," Vitnir replied, grudging the admission.

"Then I do not see why you should be disgruntled," the king said.  "Iron does not often stir the passions as gems do—" he passed the peridot back to Veylin "—but it is not fickle.  We all rely on it, every day.  Why do you think Thorin Oakenshield has turned to iron to rebuild his fortune?  You were in negotiations with one of his kinsmen during the West Council this autumn, were you not?"

Royal interest in his affairs and the subtleties of Regin's table soon put Vitnir in better humour; Veylin absorbed tidbits of news and the excellent blue-veined cheese, letting the others take the conversation where they would.  He would have enjoyed the meal very much, were it not for the extra vigilance required on his tongue and a certain anxiety about the meeting with the king that was to follow.  Not about the chain—he was sure Regin would be pleased with how his regalia was progressing—but the questions that were bound to be asked over it.  Regin's rule was like the craft of a venerable master who barely needed to touch a gem to make it shine . . . but Veylin was learning how profound a knowledge of one's materials such artlessness required, and could not see a clear path to candor.

Watching Reynir and Reykr, silent and intent as novices in the workshop, eyes gleaming as they looked from speaker to speaker, and occasionally at him, Veylin wondered what it was like to be one of Regin's sons, always beneath that ancient, five-fold authority.

It seemed an age before Godi rose, pleading an early appointment the next day, and the lads set to clearing the table.  Vitnir did not take two plain hints that supper was at an end, doggedly pressing his proposal for a new furnace south of Thôntaen, which would supply the necessary charcoal—so much nearer the Emyn Uial and the Shire, and needing only the king's intercession with the miners that now sold their ore south to Barazdush.  "As I said," Regin declared heartily, "a most interesting plan.  Let me consider it with the map before me, and sound the temper of Nef when he comes for the quarter sessions.  I am glad you told me of it, but it has been a long day, and I still have business with your cousin.  Thank you for coming," the king went on resolutely, all but leading Vitnir to the door.  "Good night!"

Once the door shut behind the ironmaster, Regin leaned back against the panel as if to brace it against an assault and gazed on Veylin.  "Does he believe the Elves will allow charcoal-burning on their side of the mountains, or only that if you can provoke them, he may do likewise?"

Veylin emptied his goblet and reached for the flagon to refill it.  "I do not know.  I have included him in my ventures—took him to the Havens with me in the autumn, so he could see my business there—but it has lessened rather than increased the confidence between us."

"Few bear those of alien race—or the Sea—with your equanimity," Regin observed, pushing off from the door and going to take up Veylin's strongbox.  "There are advantages in that, I am sure.  Yet you sometimes bring back an echo of outlandishness in your manner and work that makes folk uneasy."  He set the steel and gold casket on the table before Veylin.  "Show me what you have for me."

Praying it would be unimpeachable, Veylin drew out, one by one, the pale, butter-soft bags of chamois, laying the hard blaze of their contents on the snowy table-linen: gems polished and rough, settings cast but unfilled, and the massy red-gold chain that would bear all, coiled like a sleeping fire-drake.

The king stood silent over the work, stroking his beard while his discriminating eye considered each piece.  "The chain is excellent," he finally said, lifting it as if to judge how it would weigh on him.  "Long it has been since I saw such purity of style."

Veylin bowed his head.  He had made it in the archaic manner—the simplicity of round rings, two through two, invoking the mail Regin made—to honor the king's endurance, a remembrance of a more prosperous age . . . but only after lengthy deliberation, and many hours laboring on his other vision, each link a pair of arms joined by clasped hands.  His judgment that it was too contrived, over-fanciful for so solemn a purpose, had proved correct; yet it had been a near thing.

Amethyst for Rauða, emerald for Nidr, sapphire for his own sept, the great royal ruby: Regin passed all of these, setting the tip of his finger lightly on one of the tablets of opal.  "I have rarely seen such a play of fire as in these stones.  Little wonder they have captivated you."

"Only once have I seen its like," Veylin said, very low.  "A stone no larger than the nail of my little finger.  The owner would not part with it for any price, for it was the only thing of value left him from Erebor.  I cannot leave it where it lies, in the maw of the sea, to be beaten to sand."

"No."  When they had discussed which pieces he preferred and where they should be set, with what accents, Regin took up his favorite tablet again and leaned in towards the lamp, angling it in the light.  "How is it that some folk mistake your passion for a liking of the Sea?"

Veylin spared him a sidelong glance, as he packed the rest away.  "How many do you think know where this can be found?"

Regin blew softly, something between a snort and a sigh.  "The lack of confidence is not, it seems, all on one side.  I do not say you are unwise!" he declared, raising his hand to forestall Veylin's retort.  "He is your cousin, after all.  Still . . . would any of the privileged belong to Nidr's Line?"

"Thekk dared venture to the shore with me; together we found it.  It is not right that his kin should lose the profit as well as him."

Shaking his head, Regin handed the fire opal to him.  "You are just, Veylin; perhaps too just.  But do not pretend to be disinterested.  To aid your sister and her sons is commendable, though not to the cost of your line.  Can you not give them more of your time, at the least?  Stay to keep the Midsummer feast with your kin?"

Veylin dropped his gaze to the gem.  He had not been to the shore to seek more of this since the great tempest, and this was the sea's most peaceful season.  "I was not able to prospect as I desired this spring.  Men of the Star hunted brigands across the mountains, to the grief of White Cliffs.  The Men slew them all," he assured Regin, whose grave surprise began to look like reproach, "before the news reached us, but to be certain none escaped, Men and Elves scoured the country for weeks."

"Elves?" the king repeated, disapproval deepening.  "Why did they involve themselves?"

Sút, then, had neglected to mention the scare, or her meeting with Hanadan and Coruwi.  "The Lady Saelon pays rent to the Shipwright for White Cliffs, and their agreement requires her folk to watch his border."

Regin drew on his beard, frowning.  "Yes . . . I remember now.  You told me of their pact at the West Council.  This does not inconvenience you at Gunduzahar?"

"It inconveniences me," Veylin allowed, "but since the delf itself is our chief mine and work, few others."

"And the women—what do they say?"

"That they see no need to return to the mansion.  Do you think I would keep my sister where she was not secure?  The doors are triple-spelled, and Feldir set the locks.  We offered to escort them hence, but all declined."

"Perhaps they desire a stronger guard than Gunduzahar can provide."

Laying the last bag in the strongbox, Veylin shut it with a snap.  "If so, I cannot believe Sút did not say as much in her letter.  What does she shrink from?"

Regin scowled, still tugging on his beard.  "True.  Sút is not shy.  You are sure the brigands are dead, and the Elves have departed?"

"I am sure, in regards the brigands.  Who can be certain where Elves are concerned?  I take what comfort I can from finding the Shipwright's marchwarden civil."

"Where did the brigands come from, do you know?"

Here the king had some grounds for discontent; yet there had been no fit opportunity to tell him of them earlier, with Vitnir prosing on.  "The Men of the Star first found them on Coldfell, and they fled into the mountains when harried.  Some were Men of Angmar."

Grim as all grew when that cursed place was mentioned, Regin rumbled, "We will keep a closer watch that way.  Is this not another reason," he pressed, "to reconsider?  You came with only your prentices, did you not?  Few axes, should you meet with trouble . . . and there is always some trouble, it seems, west of the mountains."

At least he said nothing of his lameness.  "I came with just the lads, yes, but Haust and a packtrain of lead will return with us.  I am more anxious about the mire of Sunnadale than a few starveling Men."

"Hm."  Though still unsatisfied, Regin nodded in commiseration.  "Perhaps it will be passable, if the weather remains dry.  If you are confident of the way otherwise, is there any reason you cannot return for Midsummer?"

Veylin folded his hands and met the king's umber gaze.  "You wish me to be here."

"I do."

What was there to say?  "Then I will come, sire."

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 Notes

  **Cabinet** : while we now think of this as a piece of furniture, originally it was a small chamber used for more exclusive or "privy" councils—which is why second-tier government officials are often referred to as the Cabinet.

  **Urimë** : Westron/Common Speech (from Quenya), August.

  **"not only father in title, but Father in fact, forbear several times over"** : not only are Dwarvish "'kings' or heads of lines . . . regarded as 'parents' of the whole group" (HoME XII: _The Peoples of Middle-Earth_ , "The Making of Appendix A," p. 285), but Regin is the fifth "incarnation" (see the note for "Reawoken" in Ch. 7) of the Father of the Firebeards.  Anyone who had been king five times in the history of Firebeards would appear multiple times in the genealogy of so high-ranking a dwarf-lord as Veylin.

  **Scruple** : a very small unit of weight, equal to 1.2 grams.


	27. Shake the Darling Buds of May

_For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May._

—Sir Thomas Malory, _Le Morte d'Arthur_ ****

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Saelon sat on a slab of stone amid the purling water of the burn, humming softly to herself as she combed her hair in the blessed sun.  This was the Lothron of song, the very heart of spring: on one hand stood the eaves of the oakwood, vividly green—brief, enchanting perfection—and on the other the many-colored gaiety of burnside flowers, scattered among the white purity of blooming may.  The flowers were, in fact, her object . . . but when Dírmaen had glimpsed a roebuck and slipped off in silent pursuit, she could not resist the calm clarity of the pool just upstream.

There had been a time when, secure in her solitude, a bathe was a commonplace; yet it had become a luxury, furtiveness making it an almost guilty pleasure.  Now, the risk run, she sat clean and clad and cool, hair damply dark and sleek, savouring the warmth of the sun and the fragrant sweetness of the air.  After so dreadful a start, spring had grown in kindness week by week: rain enough for her garden and the tender young corn, and no more; mild air; an abundance of milk; greater accord in the hall since Leod was with Maelchon . . . even Tearlag improved, a little, allowing herself to be coaxed out into the sun, where Canand brought her presents of birds' eggs and posies, quite like a lad for all his grey hair.

Peace, too, between her and Dírmaen.  For some time, he had asked most penitently to be allowed to accompany her on her more frequent forays, though of late it had become a matter of course: when she readied her basket and took up the sturdy digging stick of blackthorn he had made her—so she might always have at least a cudgel to hand, he said, without looking the least droll—he would collect his bow and follow.  She had tried other companions; had gone out one day with Rian and Randir, for dyestuffs and to observe how matters stood between them; yet none suited her as well as Dírmaen, so often silent and self-effacing.  Nor did he always keep close, as he had before.  More and more he would range further afield, seeking game as she hunted out flowerheads and new leaves.  Whether he trusted her more or himself less, Saelon did not know, but she hoped he would bag the roebuck.  Like the grand salmon he had taken while she gathered butterbur and horsetails on the river last week, it would be a welcome change from the white foods that now served as their chief meat.

She had been woolgathering long enough: if she had nothing to show by the time Dírmaen returned, she would feel idle indeed.  Rising, she leapt from stone to stone to shore, taking her sickle and old cloak from the packbasket she had left at the foot of an aspen, whose young leaves whispered pleasantly where the breeze caressed its top.  Surveying the bounty of herbs before her, she decided to pass over the cuckoo-flower, which would not keep, and the orchids, which required digging, for a flourishing patch of cancerwort.

The birds, which had fallen silent or fluttered away when she shook out the threadbare, stain-dappled woolen, had only just returned to their songs when a rattle of branches betrayed someone thrusting their way through the hazels at the edge of the wood.  Tossing a handful of pink-flowered plants onto the cloak, Saelon straightened up and craned her neck to see who or what it was, sickle poised.  Broad, hulking . . . with a hitch and a grunt, the figure paused, shifting the burden across its shoulders.

"You got him!" Saelon cried.

Dírmaen trod the remaining distance with the measured deliberation of a burdened man, the roebuck's slim legs crossed over his breast.  "Yes," he said, voice strained, before ducking his head to swing the carcass to the ground beside her old cloak.  "Though it is only a gerle."

Dainty the deer might be, yet it was well-fleshed for its slender kind.  "There may be little honor in such a quarry," Saelon replied, bending to feel a haunch, "but meat is meat, and no less welcome for delicacy."  What would be best to flavor such young flesh?  An older beast benefited from juniper berries, but thyme and ramps might suit better, an altogether more spring-like taste.  Ramps grew in profusion a short way within the wood, and there was charlock and sourock at hand—  "Have you hurt your arm?"

Dírmaen left off kneading the place where the reiver chief had cut him.  "No.  It is only stiff.  Do you think I could have made this shot if it were still weak?"

Why, then, did he reach for the lashings securing his bow case to the back of his belt with his right hand only?  "I would not know.  Have you used all of the balm I gave you?"

"Nearly.  You have not harvested much," he observed as he laid his case and quiver beside his quarry, puzzled as well as defensive.

With a roguish urge to prick his stern pride, Saelon said off-handedly, "I had a bathe."  Pointing upstream with her sickle, she added, "There is a very fine pool above.  Would you not like to visit it?"

Thin-lipped disapproval; a glance at the state of his shoulders; suspicious eyes: the play of expression across the renewed keenness of his face almost made her laugh.  "Foolish woman," he dismissed—whether her actions or her suggestion she could not tell—and turned to gaze thoughtfully at the lower branches of the aspen.

Saelon gave a light huff and stooped again to her work.  "As you will."

She moved along the bank, taking a few plants here and few there, to be sure of more next year.  Going to the tree, Dírmaen laid a hand on one of the sturdiest branches, and when it satisfied his testing heave, proceeded to hang and bleed the buck.  Wrinkling her nose at the butcherly smell, Saelon was pleased to see a particularly flourishing stand of cancerwort just beyond a broad bush of may, whose sweet bloom masked the unpleasantness.

When she had followed her harvest all the way around, Dírmaen was not to be seen.  Frowning, she straightened up and looked around.  Where had he gone?  Not to the edge of the burn, to scour his hands clean with sand from its bed.  Surely he could not have been tempted, so soon, by another glimpse of beast or bird—he had taken as much meat as he could carry, and they had no need for more.  And his bow, she found when she brought her armful of herbage to the spread cloth, still lay where he had set it.  With a shake of her head, Saelon glanced about for more cancerwort.  If he did not appear for their midday meal, then she would begin to be concerned.

Her search led her upstream, patch by patch: twice she bundled her cloak and shifted it further on, turning briefly aside for a ring of white caps of Lothron, which would go very well with the venison.  So it was that she found herself looking down on the pool where she had bathed, eye drawn by a pale flutter in the sun.

A linen shirt draped over a branch to dry; and on a mossy bank beside, Dírmaen sat, dark head bent, trimming his nails with his knife.

He was pale also, save for the fading weal above the elbow, lightly flushed like the petals of a dog-rose from the sun or the chill of the pool, not the pallor she had grown weary of.  Nor was he any longer too thin.  That she had felt as a reproach, proof that she was wanting: as hostess, healer, woman.  Not that she would have him stout; men, like the horses and hounds they doted on, ought to show a fine play of muscle . . . .

She should not be here, spying on him in this way.  That she had come to know his form intimately during his convalescence gave no license beyond the sick-room.  What if he should see her?  It would—must—encourage his ardour; be mistaken for attraction on her part.  Mere chance had brought her here—she had had no notion, after his scoff, that he would heed her suggestion—and it had been pleasant to see him so much improved, a gratification to her skill.  Yet she must not linger, lest he sense her regard.  Gathering up her bundle with silent care, she soft-footed back the way she had come.

When the sun stood overhead, he found her sitting doucely beneath a gean a little way beyond the burdened aspen, weaving reedmace leaves into a soft basket for the mushrooms.  "What have you there?" he asked, hanging his bow and quiver on a stub of a branch.  "Lothron caps?  That is a lucky find!  They will go well with the buck."

"That was my thought," Saelon said, tucking the tapered end of the blade-like leaf into the weave.

Sitting down beside her, Dírmaen snagged a stray fragment of mushroom and popped it in his mouth.  "Mm—" an approving noise "—yes, that will be good.  What do we have for now?  Hunting has spurred my appetite."

She passed him the cloth-wrapped parcel.  "Bannocks and cheese.  Here are sourock leaves, if you would like to liven the flavor."

With a shake of his head, and after offering her first choice, he set to.

Something had changed; he was different, or she was.  She had always known he was tall—had craned her neck to fix his gaze in anger or vexation often enough—but here, now, she felt it.  His stature, the sweep of shoulder beneath imperfectly dry linen . . . .  How did such spare brawn give that impression of strength?

He was a good-looking man, very good-looking, when he was in temper.

Saelon nibbled on sourock leaves, wondering about the state of her own humours.  Could this glamour simply be the flush of health, striking after long illness and disorder, and her pleasure in it a kind of vanity, taken with her accomplishment and not the man?

He had not been ill when first he came; nor had he been disordered until those last months before he left them, crabbed by disappointment . . . perhaps despair.  How was one to tell with so proud and taciturn a man?

"May I?" he asked and, right hand full of bannock, reached for the mushrooms with his left.

There; a hitch in the movement, slight but jarring.  "Your arm is not right," Saelon murmured, not wanting to start a quarrel.

His sword-grey eyes grew wary.  "Not entirely.  Though it grows better, week by week."

"I am glad; that is as it should be."  For so able a man to be crippled, even in his off arm, through having come to her aid would have been a weight indeed.  "Yet, might I—would you allow me to examine it?  I do not insist," she assured him.  "I do not believe you have neglected it, or used it ill; but there may be more I can do to ease the scar."

Having considered while he chewed, Dírmaen shrugged and began unlacing the bracer he wore on that side since his wounding.  Hastily Saelon finished her bannock, wiping her fingers carefully clean on the cloth that had wrapped the barley cakes as he pushed his sleeve as high as it would go and held the linen there.

She had not seen his arm close-to almost two weeks now.  Drawing near, she lightly traced the proud flesh of the scar with a single finger.  Such an ugly wound it had been, poisoned by the filth on the reiver's blade.  The livid color was fading—

"Have you dealt with many sword-wounds?"

He sounded more curious than skeptical, at least.  "Sword-wounds, no," she allowed.  The scar was harder than she liked.  Strange, if he were using the balm she had given him, for elderflowers did not draw.  "Knife and sickle, axe and bill-hook, however—they were common enough in Srathen Brethil.  How much of the arm's strength has returned?"  Some of both great muscles had been cut, but the sinews were unharmed.

"Somewhat more than half.  So it was in Srathen Brethil that you learned healing?"

"Where else?  Tell me if I give you pain," she told him, though she knew he would not.

Nor did he; his face only took on its familiar grimness as she pressed deep into the fleshy part of his arm, seeking hidden knots or carbuncles.  "I do not know.  Yet if you have dwelt so long by the shore—"

What of her did he doubt?  "Do you think I was a girl when I left Srathen Brethil?" she wondered.  "The rudiments I learnt from my mother; when plague took her, her mother took me in hand."

"Narwen, was it?  From the Tower Hills?"

Who told him that?  Ah, yes; he was there when she named her grandam to Gwinnor, that trying day last spring.  "Yes.  A most formidable beldame, so spare me your severe looks—I was hardened long ago."

"I did not mean to criticize," he murmured, gravity turned penitent.

Saelon snorted softly, easing her grip on his abused flesh.  "I am sure I gave you pangs enough to excuse sharpness.  But all is well: there is no great wrongness, though many minor ones.  I am most concerned about the hardening of the scar," she told him, stroking his arm to soothe it.  "Yet if that did not give you some pain, I will worry that you have lost feeling in the limb."

When he lifted his gaze to hers, Saelon suddenly felt how little distance stood between them.  "I have not lost feeling in the limb," he assured her, voice changed.

The warm substantiality of his flesh was within her stilled hand, the only roughness the scar; his scent in her nostrils—not the sick sourness of the invalid she had nursed, but a man's musk, unsullied by muck or sweat.

It went to her head like the mead of the Dwarves.  Shutting her eyes against the light in his, she turned her head away.

His breath was in her hair.  "Saelon, if you will not have me, I must go."

"I . . . ."  Oh, how had she come to this?  She had feared to encourage his ardour, yet it was her own that had roused, famished as a long-somnolent dragon.

More than his breath was in her hair, and still she clutched his arm.  "Why," a murmur as soft as the questing press of his lips, "will you not have me?"

The thunder of her heart drowned thought.  "I—  I am too old.  We do not agree!"  She must not be shameless.  Not again.

"Saelon."  She had never dreamt he could be tender in reproach.  "I have said age is nothing to me; nor will I hear anything against your height or beauty.  Can you doubt, any longer, the sincerity of my regard?"

She dared no more than a shake of her head.

"If I am disagreeable, why have you so often suffered my company?"

"Because you were right," she conceded, voice small, eyes pricking with tears.  "It is not safe."

For a moment she thought—feared? hoped?—he would take her in his arms, but instead he laid his head against hers.  "I wish it were not so."

Silence fell between them, like the spent flowers drifting down from the gean: silence but not peace, as Saelon strove to subdue her desire.  She was out of her senses, or too much in them; bewitched by spring's sweet riot and the vital passion of this man, this maddening, admirable man.  To take him, and be taken in return . . . .

Mad.  She was mad, to entertain such heedless lust.  If she gave way, he would not disdain her, for all his honor—not until after.  Would he plead for her hand then?  Drawing a tremulous breath, Saelon bit her lip and let go his arm.  "I did not say you were disagreeable, only that we do not agree.  Can you deny it?"

Dírmaen straightened.  "How can I," he protested, "without proving what you say?  I have tried to mend my manner.  You have not found me more congenial?"

"I have, but—oh, let us not quarrel!  You will make an excellent husband, I am sure; for a woman of less independent mind."

"I went home and looked for a wife," he told her, voice harsh, "to put you from my mind, yet none could compare.  They were young, yes, prettily got up and eager to please—too eager, silly or sly.  That _I_ did not find agreeable.  I do not want to be mated to a lapwing, who will feign weakness to lead me where she will.  Let me have a falcon who does not fear to strike!"

An afflicted sigh broke from her, and she shook her head.  "You are no tiercel."

"Lady, we are here, where you would be, for all my efforts.  I am the one who abandoned the field.  Must I lay my sword at your feet for you to acknowledge your triumph?"

A more emphatic shake of the head.  "No!  Do you think I wish to see you humbled?"  What she admired in him was the strength and stern Dúnedain pride that made him a living blade against the foe.  If he surrendered that, what would there be to love?

"Then please, do not make me beg.  Saelon, I am yours, whether you will have me or no.  Tell me what I am to do."

How could she, when she could not command herself?  "You do me too much honor," she protested.  Must she tell him?  No.  Not if she refused him.  If she took him, however, it could not be concealed.  Yet would it not be the surest way to destroy his regard?  Life was cruel, so cruel: now that her bones ached for his touch, she must repel him.

Fingers, feather-light, on her hair.  "I have no gems, nor any land you would want; all I can give is myself.  Will you not let me prove your own kind prize you higher than any Dwarf or Elf?  Saelon, will you not look at me?"

This time, when she bit her lip, she tasted blood, but she raised her gaze to his face.  Naked yearning, balanced on that knife-edge between hope and despair: oh, to take him to her breast and comfort him, make amends for her many past unkindnesses . . . .  "I am not a maid."

For a dreadful moment, she thought he had not heard her, that she would be forced to repeat herself.  Then his face took on the denying vacancy of a man who had been told he must lose a limb, or that his wife had died.  He had not, then, believed the lies that coupled her with Veylin, for all his jealousy; nor had older tales reached his ears.  But from whom would he have heard them?  Few of the folk who came here from Srathen Brethil had been born at the time of her disgrace, and nothing had been spared—nothing—to preserve her reputation.

Though he had gone so terribly still, Dírmaen did not draw away; his fingers still rested on her hair behind one ear.  "Of your own will?"

"Yes."

He took his hand back; otherwise he did not move, only stared on her as though she were a stranger.  Perhaps she ought to have lied, that he might place the blame elsewhere.  But had he not just lauded her indomitable spirit?

The silence stretched out so long that she was near rising, to pack her basket and go, when he asked, very low, "Will you tell me who?"

"No one you know.  An Edain lad, long ago."

She could not tell if that was any comfort to him.  "Did you love him?"

"Yes."  If she shut her eyes, the heat of her blood conjured him: sweet Necton, no taller than herself, the sunny gold of his hair utterly unlike her Dúnedain kin.  When her elder sister Minuial, mistress of the hall once Mother died, was again displeased with her ignoble want of stature or clumsy needlework or neglect of finery, Necton could always turn her rage or tears into laughter.  If Halladan had been at home, may be she would not have been driven to such a refuge . . . but he had been abroad in the Chieftain's service, earning his right to inherit, and her father too much occupied with lordship to see, let alone check, the unkindness of her siblings.

If . . . .  If Mother had not died; if Minuial had not been soured by Dírhavel's rejection; if Brassar's temper had not been ungovernable—

"Why did you not marry him?"

Never, it seemed, could she satisfy her high-minded folk.  "My younger brother killed him."  Brassar had happened upon them in their bower; the wonder was that he had not put them both to the sword where they lay.  Would that not have been less cruel?  "I was told—" repeatedly, continually "—that my father exiled him for dishonoring me, but it was not so.  Only when Narwen was on her deathbed and my father in his grave did I learn the truth."  Bitter, that those two, chief among the few she loved, had lied to her; bitter as the tisane her grandmother had given her when she was distraught with shame and separation from her swain.  It had not been grief that made her ill, but pennyroyal, whose uses she did not learn till long after, their assurance that she would bear no half-blood bastards to put off a proper suitor.

So she had nothing of Necton save memories, of a time too brief.  Doomed to brevity, it was true—he had been a few years older than Canand—but who else would recall him now, a simple cottar-lad?  Did even his kin remember him, wherever the _raugs_ had driven them?  She could not but weep, slow, hot tears of anger and regret and grief, undimmed by years, and once she began, she could not stop.

At some point Dírmaen drew her to him, cradling her as though she were an inconsolable child, hushing softly in her ear and rocking her in his arms.

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Notes

**White foods** : dairy products.

**Cancerwort** (also herb-robert, _Geranium robertianum_ ): a plant prized for its medicinal uses and ability to repel insects.

**Gerle** : a yearling roebuck.

**Charlock** (also wild mustard; _Sinapsis arvensis_ ): a weedy plant eaten as a green when young.

**Sourock** (also sorrel; _Rumex acetosa_ ): a versatile plant eaten as a green, with a sharp, acid taste.

**"white caps of Lothron"** : St. George's mushrooms ( _Calocybe gambosa_ ), one of the few edible fungi to be found in spring.  Their name comes from their habit of reliably appearing on or around St. George's Day (April 23), which by my estimation is very nearly the first day of Lothron.

**Dog-rose** (also brier or briar-rose, _Rosa canina_ ): a common wild rose used medicinally and for dyeing.  The label "dog" signifies it has no scent.

**Gean** (also wild cherry, _Prunus avium_ ): a small woodland tree valued for its fruit (if it can be harvested before the birds get it) and its wood.

**Reedmace** (also cattail, bulrush; _Typha latifolia_ ): a waterside plant used for basketry; its roots are also edible.

**Lapwing** ( _Vanellus vanellus_ ): a crested plover noted for the female's practice of luring predators from her nest by pretending to have a broken wing.  Its name in Greek is "luring on deceitfully."

**Tiercel** : a male falcon.  Tiercels are smaller and weaker than females.


	28. Fronting the Waves

_As to the sea itself, love it you cannot.  Why should you?  I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life is married to it.  It is the creation of Omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden._

 —Henry Major Tomlinson, _The Sea and the Jungle_

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In the darkness of the men's chamber, Dírmaen lay on his bed of heather unsleeping, staring towards the wall.  He thought he could see it, a fugitive paleness where the glow of the rushlight in the hall without slipped through the part-open door . . . but he cared very little.  His heart was like a stone within him.  A stone, or a briar; at once or by turns.  Or gall.

Whatever it was, it was a burden.  He had thought love unreturned the cruelest torment, a festering fire in the flesh.  Yet this . . . this was worse.  He could no longer bear it in silent stillness.

Rising as quietly as his bed allowed—Gaernath's soft snoring continued undisturbed, and Randir only grunted—Dírmaen put on his shirt, picked up boots and jerkin, and stole out into the hall.  There he could sit and pull on his boots.  Since the latest of the never-ending rearrangements, Finean and his daughter taking back the chamber Leod and his wife had claimed, only Canand slept in the hall, rolled in his cloak by the warmth of the hearth, but he was always hard to rouse.  Shrugging into his jerkin against the cool night as he crossed to the door, Dírmaen briefly wondered what he would tell the watchman.  It was Teig's turn, was it not?  Little matter, then: the man would be bemused by any but the simplest excuse.

As it turned out, he need not have troubled.  The kennelman was hunched on the bench, head on his knees, twitching a little in his sleep as though he were a dreaming hound.  Scowling at the dereliction, Dírmaen started forward to shake him into proper wakefulness . . . and then thought better of it.  They patrolled regularly now, and in depth; there was no sign of any save their own folk and the Dwarves, unless the bracken on the brae of rowans had been bent by Elves rather than bedding deer.  There was no need to call attention to his restlessness.

The cliff's shadow was a stark band of black at its foot; beyond, milk-white moonlight poured down, showing this open country nearly as plain as day.  He might wander anywhere.  As he paused, irresolute, gazing out over the machair-fields, he heard the distant mutter of the sea.

That low sound, troubled and troubling, echoed the turmoil in his heart, so that was the way he went.  Past the silvered shoots of springing bere, up the ragged rampart of the dunes: the measureless expanse of leaden water stretched away before him, curling waves crawling shoreward to lap at the thin flood-tide crescent of sand.  Saelon's rock was awash, a glimmering swirl of sea-foam.

But for the height of the tide, he would not have been surprised to see her there.  Had the afternoon's storm of grief purged her embrangled passions, or was she as sleepless as he?  He could not guess; hardly knew his own feelings.  Sinking down to sit on the short turf, he wrapped his arms about his knees and stared out at the roil of the surf.  His conduct did not satisfy him.  He had been unable to find words to speak, not while holding her in his arms nor during their journey back to the hall, and she had said no more.  Had he lost her through reticence?

If so, was that to be regretted?

She had protested he did her too much honor; perpetually demeaned herself in innumerable small ways.  Now he knew why, though he did not know what appalled him more: that her virtue was not, after all, unimpeachable, or the inhumanity of her family.  If one of his sisters had given herself to an Edain lad under the rose, he would have been angered and ashamed, but he would not have done the man harm, so long as she had not been cozened or abused.  Descended from kings, Saelon's kinsmen may have had more pride of blood . . . yet had not her father's sister been Gaernath's great-grandam, wedding an Edain husbandman?

Wed: after decent courtship, or by necessity?  How was it that women of such high lineage should give themselves to lesser men, hastening the decline of the Dúnedain?  Did the blood of Srathen Brethil harbor some fault, of which Saelon's want of stature was a sign, or had their withdrawal beyond the Lhûn done the mischief, depriving their women of fit suitors?

Too late, Saelon had cried when she spurned him last autumn.  Had she meant her age alone, or that her heart had already been given?  For there could be no doubt she loved that long-dead lad.  It was easier to imagine that she had wished to marry him than that she had been free with her favors.  Had she bound herself to him?  There was the ancient rite—no, or she would have said, in answer to his last question.  Had she lived all those years in hope of him returning to her, or for word of where to seek him?  Did she consider herself a widow?

Seen in that light, her independence and carelessness in regard to the strictures of feminine honor were more comprehensible; though such a view was less favorable to his desire.  Dúnedain seldom took a second spouse.  Yet she had wanted him yesterday: the tender persistence of her touch, her quickened breath had betrayed her.  Could he—would he—be content with venery when he sought a spouse?  Would she have him, on any terms, after a silence that must have seemed censorious?  Should he not be censorious?

Groaning, he pressed his forehead against his knees.  Love and honor, unyielding as milling stones, would grind him to dust.  Why had he not been sensible and betrothed himself to Mereth, or one of the other belles of the Downs?  Simple, uncomplicated girls who wanted little more than a good man's children.  Mother would have been pleased, and before long his elder siblings would have lost the power to lord their responsible maturity over him.  Why must his heart cleave to a woman whom bitterness had made fiercely independent and mistrustful of her own kin?

Greatness of heart.  She was far from faultless, but who could not admire her courage, her endurance, her selfless service to those in her charge?  Had he come upon a hawk or a horse of such spirit, spoilt by ill treatment, he would wish to mend its temper.  Could he not do the same for her, if she would let him?

If she would let him.  Oh, why had he been mute when she wept in his arms?  Why had he not assured her of his regard?

Beyond the moil in his mind but nearer than the crashing hiss of the surf, someone was singing.  A woman's voice, low, wandering over a lament for Atalantë.  Heart leaping as if spurred, Dírmaen raised his head enough to peer down on the strand below.

Who else could it have been?  Saelon paused in her song to stoop down and pick some thing up from the shore, shying it into the waves before continuing on again, pacing the sand and singing of loss.

Indecision paralyzed him: if he stood, would she not be startled?  Suspect that he spied on her?  Yet when might he again have an opportunity to speak to her alone?  Never, if her heart had closed against him.  For a moment longer he sat, arms clenched, baffled to find a way to reveal his presence without rousing her resentment—and then, heart overfraught, joined in the lament.

For a few notes.  Stopping song and step, Saelon looked over her shoulder, the flooding moonlight showing clearly the change in her expression, from brow-arched surprise to a frown.  "Dírmaen?"

His voice faltered before he realized that the still-rising orb must show her little but a dark shape.  "Yes."

Was it that silver light that made her look so cold?  "What brings you here?"

"I could not sleep, and the sound of the waves spoke to me."

Her soft snort was nearly lost in the sough of the sea, and she turned to continue on her way.

"Saelon!" he called, stretching a hand out to her.  "Please, do not go.  Forgive me: I was taken aback, and feared to speak."

"Why, if you spoke from the heart?"

"There is too much in my heart, and my tongue is too brusque."  She had not spared him her candor; she would not wish to be spared his.  At least now she was not weeping.  "How am I to understand your tale?  Do you wish to be faithful to the man you lost, or was this your last defense?"

She was not quick to answer, standing there as the waves washed over her feet, gazing at him.  "No."

"No?" he prompted when she said no more.

"No."  She sounded decided but tired, weary of the world.  "Necton made me happy, and for that I loved him . . . there was no deeper bond.  I was just a girl, and he did not make me feel small."  She shook her head and pressed on, voice thick.  "Until the others came from Srathen Brethil, I rarely thought of him, save when Halladan took me home for Yule.  That is not faithfulness."

"You judge yourself harshly."

Giving a gusty sigh, she dabbed at her eyes with a corner of her shawl.  "No less harshly than I judge others, I hope.  If I had not been wanton, he would not have died."

He could not but frown.  "Was the fault yours alone?  The man must have known that trifling with his lord's daughter was perilous."

"I suppose.  We were young, and fools together."

What could one say to that?  As Saelon stood, somberly pensive, Dírmaen grew uneasy with the lengthening silence, fearing she drifted away from him.  "Do I make you feel small?" he asked, hesitantly.

"Only when I must look up to you," she answered, wry, canting her head to gaze upwards at him.

Why could he not have managed to be wounded earlier, so she might look down on him sooner?  "I cannot help my height.  Shall I come and lay myself at your feet?"

Acerbic, a riffle of water running past her shapely ankles, she flung back, "You think I still fancy fools?"

"Then will you not come up and sit by me?"

The lively sharpness left her face and tone.  "That would not, I think, be wise."

"Why not?"  Hang wisdom!  A curse on her kin for making her so guarded!

"I thought you were a man who prized honor highly."

Heart forboding, he affirmed, "I do."

"Then I do not see how good can come of it."

It was her healer's gift to lay a finger unerringly on the ill.  The time for hesitation, however, was past; silence would be vacillation, when she required assurance.  He must press her, and pray he did not misstep.  "Do you believe I will add to your shame, or regret discounting it?  Whatever you were in your youth, no one could call you wanton now."

"Lis did."

"To her disgrace rather than yours."  That pert and petted minx, newly widowed and resentful of Saelon's restraints, a burden rather than help during the famine of their first year here.  "Even Hanadan knew it was naught but spite!"

"Yet you are jealous of Veylin."

"I have said my conduct was unpardonable," Dírmaen replied stiffly.  That she should cast that in his face again did her no credit . . . yet might it not be desperation?  She had not said whether her candor was meant for a defense.  "I confess I envy the ease and confidence you share.  I have told him that I do not believe there is anything dishonorable between you.  What more must I do to make amends?"

"Keep civil with him," was her curt reply.

"I will endeavor to satisfy you when next we meet.  But to what end?  Can you not give me some hope of winning you, Saelon?"  As she faltered, biting her lip, he dared, "Will you be betrothed to me, at least?  You may set the term: I am willing to prove my patience as well as my temper."

When she did not sharply set him down, his heart rose; but as her silence stretched on, fear crept in.  "I do not doubt that you can bear near anything to win your desire," she finally said with judicious care.  "How can I, after causing you so much vexation and pain?  It has already been—how long?"

"Since we danced at Maelchon's houseraising," he murmured.  That glimpse of carefree joy had bewitched him; he could still feel her strong slim hand in his.  All he wished—

"All last summer?" she exclaimed, surprised.  "And you said nothing?"

Dírmaen locked his hands together beyond his knees.  "Halpan left you, left you all, in my care.  If you rejected me—as you did—how could I have remained?"

"You thought I would sacrifice our security?"

"Or your own peace."

Although she looked him in the face again, her mouth was ominously crooked.  "You did not scruple to accompany me to Mithlond."

"I could not refuse Halpan without explanation that must embarrass both of us.  We were always in company, so you could not fear I would press my attentions on you unwanted."

She stared, and shook her head.  "What use, then, in charging you to bide another year, or longer?  The more difficulties you face, the more obstinate your regard becomes, or so it seems."

He made to object to such a description of his devotion, but Saelon carried resolutely on.  "You have shown that you are amenable, with an end in view.  I need no further proof that you can be agreeable.  My concern is whether you will remain so once you have achieved your desire."

"Why would you think otherwise?"  Did she mean to try him to the breaking point?

"One may take pride, even pleasure, in overcoming vexations," she answered, quiet, sober—too sober, "provided they are not inescapable.  Of your temper, I may not be certain, but I know my own too well.  You have had a fair taste of it.  Do not tell me that will not pall."

Dírmaen looked on her as she stood there, proud head bowed, staring at the sand about her feet; heart full, he rose and went to her.  Setting a finger, a single finger, beneath her chin—the skin warm, soft—he tipped it up to gaze into her melancholy eyes.  "From what I have heard and seen, you have had ample cause for discontent.  Will you not even let me try to make you happy?"  She was so fair in the moonlight, pale and slender as a black-headed seabird.  His lips yearned for the touch of her brow, her temple—

"We have already disagreed!" she objected, almost wildly.

He silenced her with a kiss.

For a few drumming beats of his heart, she resisted him; then the hand that had risen to push him away clenched in his jerkin, pulling him to her.

Dírmaen took her in his arms and let his mouth speak more eloquently than any words.

When they parted for breath, Saelon's came ragged, near to sobs.  "Hshh," he soothed, stroking her hair with his cheek as she trembled against him, shaken by her own hunger.

"No," she panted, giving her head a short shake before ducking it away.  "No, not again.  I must not be wanton."

"There is no need," he murmured.  "Take my hand and be my wife."

"We will quarrel," she protested, almost fretfully.

He snorted softly.  Who was obstinate now?  "Doubtless.  Husbands and wives do, yet that does not prevent folk from wedding."  If she did not stop talking such nonsense, he would kiss her again.

"Husbands are commonly their wives' masters.  You once said you did not wish to be my lord."

Bowing his head low, he took up her hand—such a shapely hand—and kissed it, a tender obeisance.  "You are my Lady."

Her fingers on his cheek; her thumb tracing his lips.  "You are besotted," she breathed, "and I am near as bad.  Will we not regret this once we are sated?  I do not want to come to hate you."

"How can I prove myself, save by loving you?  Some things must be taken upon trust."

"Aye," she said, but distractedly, and when he sought another kiss, she held him off.  "Wait."

She was thinking; he did not want her to think.  "Saelon—"

"Will you be handfast to me?"

"Shall I plight my troth now?" he asked, catching her hand and kissing it again, and again.  "Or must you have it before your folk?"  Kinsmen; he must speak to her kinsmen.  How long would it take to find Halpan in Srathen Brethil?

Why did she look so grave?  "I am not speaking of a betrothal.  Do you not have the custom in the Downs?"

"What custom?"  He could make no sense of this; stared at her, baffled, the glad galloping of his heart dropping a beat.

Saelon took a deep breath.  "Handfasting is a trial marriage.  It has the same rights and duties—is as licit as the ordinary form," she assured him, with a haste that made him think he must be frowning, "but the term is fixed at a year and a day."

He had heard of it: a custom of the Edain beyond the Lhûn, exciting curiosity and derision among his fellow Rangers.  License for lust, most held, allowing man and woman to enjoy the sweetest spell of their connection without binding them to the weariness that came after.  How could a man sire a child and leave the mother to care for it as best she could?  That was no better than getting bastards.  "And if there is a child?"

"It would be legitimate.  Though you should not hope for a child," she cautioned, somber within the curve of his arm.  "I am not of an age to make it hopeless, but near.  If we wed by the regular form, you might set me aside for barrenness; with handfasting, there is less shame if a couple parts.  No one must declare their dissatisfactions."

"Children are in the hand of the One," Dírmaen said, fearing his voice was harsh.  "I would welcome them, but it is you I want, now and all the days of my life."

"That is all very well, but I do not see the future so clearly!  Will you not give me time to be certain?  A betrothal will bring no peace, not—" her hand stroked his flank, making his blood sing "—now.  Come . . . a few weeks of open courting, during which we may continue to rove in company, and we can be handfast at Midsummer."

Why should he resist her?  It was not the most honorable course; yet how else could he keep any rag of honor save by fleeing her and this place?  He ached; she was willing: he burned to carry her to a hollow among the dunes and—  No; no, he must not imagine it.  It would be too easy, easier even than this part-marriage she offered.  "You see how much I love you, that I will consider such a thing?  If I please you and can lay your doubts, what then, when Midsummer next comes?"

"Whatever you wish," she said, drawing his head down for another kiss.

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 Notes

  **"the ancient rite"** : an echo of the minimal marriage ceremony described in "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar" (HoME X: _Morgoth's Ring_ ): "It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage . . . to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name [of Eru])."  While this was a custom of the Eldar, it must have been the form of marriage that bound Beren and Luthien, and therefore would not have been entirely without respect among the Dúnedain.

  **Venery** : hunting, or sex.


	29. Rules of Engagement

_Marriage . . . is a damnably serious business . . . ._

 —John Phillips Marquand, _The Late George Apley_ ****

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 Hiding a yawn behind her hand, Saelon plucked up a boiling stone from the hearth with the wooden tongs and slipped it into her cup, breathing deep of the sharp green smell of mint.

"You are not feeling unwell, Aunt?" Rian asked with concern, sparing a glance from the fish on the griddle.

"No," Saelon dismissed, smiling a little and not, she hoped, too secretly.  "I had a broken night and wish to have my wits about me, that is all."  However so many might be left to her, after sitting half the night by the shore in Dírmaen's arms, drinking the sweetness of his kisses, heady as mead.  Indeed, she was somewhat giddy still.  "Where is Gaernath?"

Unagh, packing butter into a kist, laughed.  "Dunking Hanadan in the burn.  The scamp helped him clean his catch, but made a mess of himself."

"Better him than I," Saelon observed, though she joined in the smiles.  "And the Rangers?"

"Looking gravely at Whitefoot's hooves, when I passed," Unagh said.

Saelon's heart shied, pricked from languor by conscience.  "Maelchon is here?"  She had hoped to put off thought on how to reveal the attachment between her and Dírmaen at least until after her tisane, but the chance that the husbandman might see something that would arouse suspicion brought such concerns to the fore of her mind.  She believed them unsuspected; had heard no chaff or ribaldry, seen no sly glances, no half-hidden smiles or scowls.  How should there be, given her coolness to him?  Yet that was all overthrown, and the state of things between them was now beyond concealment.  Once she was in his presence again, she feared she would be so conscious of him that her distraction would be plain.  To avoid whispers, it were best they declared their love openly, and soon.

Last night, Dírmaen had wanted to take horse for Srathen Brethil at first light, to seek Halpan's approval of their alliance.  While that would doubtless have been the most honorable course, keeping both of them from temptation and assuring that her kin had word of her proposal before others, she did not trust the two men not to talk themselves out of a handfasting if she were not present to insist.  It had taken much talk—and more kisses—to convince him that there was no need for him to go, that Gaernath could fetch Halpan here to give his approval before their folk, that he would be foolish to leave her to grow cool again.

It was an effort to think beyond Dírmaen and herself.  What did the others matter, truly?  Her kin had no authority over her and were inferior in judgment, the eldest not half her age; though a woman, rule was in her hands.  None could gainsay her.  And why should any object?  Had her family not always harped upon her duty to wed a worthy Dúnadan?  Dírmaen might not be high born, but his valour and honor were beyond doubt.

No.  She must not be peremptory.  She need not heed others, yet it would be unpardonable presumption to give them no chance to speak.  Even a great lord lost respect if he did not consult with those concerned on the occasion of his marriage, and as Lady, she was more dependent upon the good will of those in her care.  Cradling the warmth of her cup in both hands, she breathed in the vapor that rose, fragrant, from the too-hot liquid.  Whose approval must she seek?

Of her kin, Halpan had most right to speak, by age and virtue of his office as her deputy in Srathen Brethil, and he had enough knowledge of Dírmaen's character for his opinion to have some worth.  She would send Gaernath for him once the lad had eaten; he could be here in three, four days.  Surely she and Dírmaen could keep discreet so long.  They could take Halpan aside soon after he arrived and, when he gave them his blessing—Saelon knew no reason why he should not—then they could present themselves to her folk, gathered all together to welcome Halpan with a feast.  Would that not satisfy propriety and precedence?

Among those here, perhaps.  But there were others.  Her nearest kinsman by blood was her brother's son Halmir, heir to Srathen Brethil, for whom she held the lordship.  Yet he was in fosterage near Fornost, more than a fortnight's journey distant, and had been but a few days in Dírmaen's company two years ago.  To wait months, perhaps, for the word of a youth of fifteen years . . . if the word would be his.  Saelon was sure Râdbaran, who stood in the place of his father, would not approve.  His condescension she remembered as keenly as his too-shrewd courtesy: he might say he only desired to protect his fosterling's inheritance, but that would license a great deal of interference, and no one could curb so high a lord save the Chieftain himself, who surely had no kind opinion of her.

Did Dírmaen mean to send word to his family?  They were as distant, though Randir might go on his behalf.  If so, it would be hard to defend neglecting to her nephew, even if she did not wait for his consent.  Yet Dírmaen had said nothing of his kin.  Perhaps he was ashamed of not securing her outright, of agreeing to a custom of the Edain, and would wait in hopes of a full marriage.  Though that, too, would be awkward, since he would not bring his bride home, as was customary.  And should he invite his kin here to witness their felicity, they would learn that they were not new-wedded.  A shabby business, to be giving offense to people she had never met, who ought to be as kin to her.

And Veylin—how would he take this news?

Sighing, she set her tisane on the wide hearth-rim to cool.  "I will fetch them in," she said, in answer to the half-attended conversation that had carried on around her preoccupation, "before the fish grow cold."

Outside, she drew her shawl more closely about her in the chill shadow of the cliff, and took a deep draught of the sea-scented air for whatever bracing it might provide.  Yes, there was Maelchon, at the head of his stolid mare, turning her and walking her back towards Dírmaen and Randir, who watched each footfall critically.  The beast did not appear lame, though perhaps there was a slight hesitation in her gait.  "Good day to you, Maelchon," she greeted the husbandman as he halted his horse by the Rangers.  "Is this the old problem again?"

"Aye, Lady," Maelchon sighed, stroking the mare's neck.  "It is hard to keep hooves in trim with the tools we have, and the wet does not help.  If Master Veylin cannot find us a smith, I will have to seek something to trade for a proper hoof-knife and rasp."

Randir came to pick up the near fore, running his fingers over the cracks that were spreading from the overlong toe.  "Bring your stoutest knife this evening, and I will put as fine an edge on it as my stone allows.  We will shave the worst of this off, but it would be as well to move her back down to the shore pastures, which are drier."

Maelchon nodded.  "Aye.  Would grease be better than oil to dress them?"

"No," Dírmaen said, brusque.  "Leave off the oil, or her feet may grow hot."

"Poor lass," the husbandman murmured, chastened, turning back to stroke the mare.

Poor man: Maelchon was attentive to his beasts, but they had always had a smith in Srathen Brethil, who did such farriery as was required.  "There are new-caught fish coming off the fire just now.  Will you take some, Maelchon, and a cup of ale before heading home?"

"Your ale is always welcome, Lady, but I have broken my fast already, thank you."

"As you wish."  The husbandman was not very fond of fish.  "Dírmaen," she said, finally daring to look her swain full in the face, "may I speak with you?"

Those clear, sword-grey eyes, which had been no more than a gleam in the dark last night, turned to her, so full of warmth and desire that her breath caught and belly tightened.  For a moment: bowing his head in an affirmative, he dropped that perilous gaze.

She led him past the byre-cave, coming to a halt by the bed of pease, where they could be seen but not overheard by Maelchon and Randir, who continued their commiserations over the placid horse.  Dírmaen stopped several paces off, as though he trusted himself no nearer.  Fingering a few twining tendrils that were clambering over the edge of the hurdle fence, Saelon asked, "You are well this morning?"

"You are of the same mind as last night, Lady?"

The look of reproach she gave him—mild; mild; he had some cause for doubt—silenced him, though she could hear the quickening of his breath.  "I will set Gaernath on his way to Srathen Brethil as soon as he has eaten.  Though, I wonder . . . ought I send word, at least, to Halmir?  Who, though, would carry the message, that could be spared so long?  And," she declared bluntly, "I do not want Râdbaran meddling in my affairs again.  Do you mean to send word to your family?"

"I do not know.  What is your thought?"

Saelon clasped her hands together, so she would not reach towards that low voice and do away with its uncertainty.  "How can I say, when they are strangers to me?  Will they be much offended by a handfasting?"

"Offended?"  Dírmaen's long face was solemn.  "I do not think so, save perhaps my elder sister.  My brothers—" a deprecating twist of his lips "—are more likely to rag me.  But they will never understand it, I am sure, from a mere message."

"Randir could not explain on your behalf?"

"I doubt I could explain myself.  No, I would not put such a burden on him . . . and, if he went to the Downs, it might be difficult for him to return.  He would not thank me for sending him from your niece."

Saelon gazed towards his friend, now chaffing with Gaernath and a thoroughly damp Hanadan, as Maelchon hitched his mare to one of the may bushes.  "He seems much attached."

Dírmaen smiled, though there was a shadow of caution on it.  "I would not say 'much,' not by my lights; but yes, he thinks very highly of her.  He would like to secure her affection before departing, so he may wait until she is of an age to plight her troth in some security.  He is a worthy man," he spoke for his friend.  "You do not disapprove, I hope."

"No."  How could she look coldly on affection, when her own heart was so full?  "There has been nothing improper in his attentions, and his open temper suits her well.  Yet," she warned, "I do not think Rian desires a fixed attachment at present.  She enjoys his company and thinks well of him, but would like to look about a little, I believe.  Though how that is to be accomplished here . . . ."  Saelon sighed.  That was another problem, for another day.  "So, you send no word over the Lune."

"I must send some message to one.  Argonui expected me on Spring Day."

"You were not fit to travel then!"

"How is he to know it, if I do not tell him?  A scrap of skin and ink can say all that is needful, however, if Gaernath will carry it to Hanend."

An explanation for his somber gravity struck her.  "You would not resign your service?"

Dírmaen's eye came back to her, keen, searching.  "Would that please you?"

In some ways; it would banish several of their most obstinate quarrels, certainly.  But if ever any man was a Ranger, he was.  "No.  I want you, yet that is no warrant for denying your talents to others.  If I do not always agree with your duty, that does not mean I would have you abandon it."  She would think less of him if he did.

Two long strides and he took her hand; for a heart-lifting moment, she thought he would kiss it.  He did not, though the glow in his eyes was nearly as ravishing.  "Lady," he murmured, a wealth of praise in a breath.  "I have hope of contenting you both.  When I spoke to Argonui at the end of Narbeleth, he was not pleased that I had left Habad.  Too many paths now cross here.  I had thought to leave Randir in my place, but since you will have me, I would let Argonui know I am willing to remain."

Saelon was not altogether certain she was pleased by this, but if Argonui wished to keep a watch over her, there was little she could do to prevent it.  Better it should be someone she knew well and might sway, beneath her roof where she could watch in turn.  "You must hasten, then, if you wish your message to go with Gaernath."

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 Soon after Gaernath left, pleased to be entrusted with so arduous an errand, the clouds drew in and rain drummed down: welcome for garden and field, yes, but Saelon felt badly for having sent the lad out into such unrelenting wet . . . and Halpan as well, as it stretched into a third day.

That it prevented her from going out to dig orchids as she had planned was also vexing, the more so since it deprived her of the opportunity to be alone with Dírmaen.  Once well away from ground the others tread, out on the bog-moor, she could have taken his hand, tracing the long strength of his fingers, and stolen a kiss—or many, drinking deep of his flattering desire.  If she dwelt on it overmuch, she could feel the curve of his back as though it were beneath her hand, marked by the wound she had daily dressed; the tuck of his ribs and clean line of his flank . . . .

Maybe it was better the weather was so foul, for since her long-quiescent lust had roused, it gnawed at her incessantly, ravening.  Once she had her hands on him, they would be hard to rule.

Dírmaen had suffered this for a year.  She could bear a few weeks, until Midsummer.  She must.

After a restless morning of interference within the hall, nearly overturning all domestic order and quite bewildering Rian, Saelon took herself off to the shore again.  Frustration whetted eye and tongue, making her unfit for mortal companionship; but the swash of the waves soothed her, and she came back resolved to occupy herself with the chore of going over all her growing store of herbs.  Determining what was spoilt and what too old for efficacy demanded close attention; if she must be critical, let her do good rather than ill.

She was going through the last bags and kists in the byre-cave when Halpan and Gaernath rode up the track through the dreary dusk.  "Saelon!" Halpan called in greeting, swinging from the saddle and leading his mud-splattered bay under the shelter of the cliff.  "All is well?"

"Very well," she assured him, putting aside a bundle of rose roots.

Coming after, Gaernath muttered, "So I said," shaking his dripping head like a wet dog.

With a reproachful look, Saelon drew the kist's lid over her herbs.  "I am sorry you both had so wet a journey, but I am in need of your opinion, Halpan.  Leave your horses here—Artan can attend to them.  Let us get you dry and fed."  Halpan's face was leaner than it had been, and less cheery.  "How do you fare in Srathen Brethil?"

The look her Dúnadan cousin gave her, as he tied Auril to the hurdle, was dubious of so determined a turn of subject.  "Well enough.  The reivers despoiled most of the houses and the bere was late into the ground, but we will hope autumn lags as much as spring.  Can you spare us more corn?  There is little game larger than a hare, still, and repairing house and byre is hard work."

"Of course."

Dry linen, two cups of ale, and a generous portion of salmon restored some of his humour.  "So, Saelon" he ventured, when Rian had told him all their news, reaching for another bannock and glancing at Dírmaen and Randir, who sat against the wall oiling their tack, "what has arisen that requires my counsel?"

Voice schooled to placidness, she replied, "Let us withdraw to my chamber.  Dírmaen, will you join us?"

Brows knit in bafflement, Halpan glanced from her to her niece and then the Rangers.  Rian looked nearly as puzzled; Dírmaen was laying aside his bridle.  Randir's gaze, however, went swiftly from her to Dírmaen and back, full of keen surmise.

He was his friend.  Even if Dírmaen had not confided in him, who was more likely to have seen a difference in his silent reserve?

Dírmaen, coming last, shut the door behind them.  "What is it this, that we cannot speak before the others?" Halpan demanded.  "Has there been trouble with the Elves?  Has the Chieftain commanded you to return across the mountains?"

"No—nothing of that kind," Saelon assured him.  "Please, sit!  Finish your bannock.  It is not something that cannot be spoken of before all, but I—we—would have your word first.  Dírmaen has asked for my hand, and I am inclined to accept."

Halfway down her cousin halted, staring first at her, then, almost as blankly, at Dírmaen.  "Your hand?" he repeated, straightening up and leaving his cup on the bench.  "You would wed?"

"You do not approve?" Dírmaen was quick to counter, low and possibly ominous.

"No!" the younger man protested.  "That is, I have no objections.  But—you know her age, do you not?  She is not so young as she appears."

As Saelon tried to decide whether to be offended or pleased, Dírmaen answered, with a suspicion of dry drollery, "I do.  She has called my attention to it every time I pled my suit."

"Every time?"

Did he think she had spent all those years alone for want of choice?  "If I desired naught but an echo," Saelon huffed, "I would have shouted into a cave.  Will you not sit down and hear us out?"

"Forgive me," Halpan muttered, sinking to the bench.  "I am astounded."

"That any man should desire your kinswoman?"  Dírmaen sounded as indignant as she.

"That she should want a man!"

"There is want and there is want," Saelon said shortly.  "I was not taught to fight or hunt, and when such things are needful, I must perforce have some man to do them.  Necessity, however, is not desire.  Knowing my temper, I chose to do away with need rather than resign myself to dissatisfaction."

Deeply discomposed, Halpan took refuge briefly in ale.  "I am sure you know your own mind.  The only quarrel I ever had with Dírmaen was over my failings, not his.  If you think he can content you, how should I gainsay you?"  Yet the look he gave Dírmaen spoke eloquently of the incredulity one man feels at another's actions.  "You know you will not get a biddable wife, or become the lord of Srathen Brethil thereby."

"Srathen Brethil is Halmir's," Dírmaen affirmed, coming to stand beside her, "and your line his heirs until he gets his own.  I do not seek to rule, only to be of greater service to this most admirable lady."  Reaching out, he took her hand, stroking her fingers before twining them with his own.  "She bears the burdens that have fallen on her nobly, but they are like to make a jade of her."

Halpan looked between them, his youthful face unusually grave.  "Do you love him, Saelon?"

The stirring warmth of their clasped hands: was this love, or merely lust, a hunger that would be sated by feeding?  "If not, I am in a fair way to being so.  Time shall prove if it be true."

"Will you have a long betrothal?"

Dírmaen's hand was still against hers and he glanced at her sidelong, but she resolutely held Halpan's gaze.  "Wherefore?  We are not youths, and have kept close company seven seasons.  Long courtship will not improve our knowledge of each other's character.  Some trial is desirable, yes," she acknowledged, seeing her cousin's unease increase.  "That is why I have consented to be handfast to Dírmaen at Midsummer."

Staring, Halpan opened his mouth—and shut it again, perhaps mindful of her earlier testiness.  Once he had taken a very thoughtful draught of ale, he set his cup aside.  "In the Edain manner?"

"Yes."

"This was your proposal?" he asked Dírmaen.

"No; hers.  She fears she may be barren and will have us free to part without blame."

That was not her chief reason, yet it sounded less licentious than what was in her heart, the more so for coming from so stern a face.

Halpan grunted and drew on his chin.  "What am I to say?  The matter is irregular from the start.  A woman of your age, taking a man of the Chieftain you defy, and by Edain custom . . . ."

"Will you not say you wish us joy?" Saelon beseeched.

Her cousin looked from one of them to the other.  "Very heartily!"  Yet she could see the misgivings in his eyes.

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 Note

  **Narbeleth** : Sindarin; the month of October.


	30. Times That Try

_A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be.  Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice._

 —Thomas Paine, _The Rights of Man_

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 Veylin pressed his thumb into the bone-deep ache above his knee and shut his eyes briefly before asking, "How many beasts are mired this time?"

So it had been, all the way from Sulûnduban.  Haust, that dull fellow—what else could be expected from one who found joy in lead?—could not manage his train of ponies.  There had not been a day when two or three did not stray from the track into some bog.  Veylin began to think it one of those diabolic pony tricks: a way to rid themselves, if only briefly, of their heavy burdens.

"Two," Thyrð reported, the jut of his fiery beard boding ill for the welcome Haust's prentices would find in the hall.  "Can we not leave them, now that we are so near Gunduzahar, and send Sannir and Hogga to dig them out?  Or fetch the lead home with some of our own beasts, and leave these here to feed the crows?"

"Do not tempt me," Veylin grumbled, shifting vainly for a better seat.  What should have been a journey of four days had stretched beyond a week with such ineptitude.  "Lend me a hand out of this infernal saddle.  Haust's lads can unlade the creatures themselves this time, to pay for their bungling."

His nephew's clasped hands as a step and shoulder for security eased the way down, and once his boots were on earth, Veylin gazed towards the flat-topped mount that sheltered Gunduzahar.  It was little more than a league distant.  Perhaps he would walk.  A glance back the way they had come showed Haust and his prentices arguing atop a hummock near the unfortunate and sullen-looking ponies, hock-deep in the deceptively green bog.  If he left them now, he would certainly reach the doors first, halt though he was.

His own mount snorted, a sound rich in contempt, and lowered its coppery head to crop the tussocky grass with sensible industry.

"We will miss dinner," Thyrð muttered.

Veylin drew his sturdy blackthorn stick from its place behind the saddle.  "I fear so."

Just above Gunduzahar's roof hung the moon's last quarter, pallid in the blue sky: the sea would be falling now, but the tides moderate, exposing little of the opal dyke.  Even so, he would get back on his pony this moment and ride to survey it, if that were not madness in broad daylight with strangers to hand.  He must be patient.  The dark of middle night was more discreet, though the sea more ominous then, only the white teeth of its waves showing in the lamplight . . . but to visit the dyke without working was also unwise, increasing the risk of its discovery.  In a week, when the moon was hid, the sea would fall lowest during the long twilight dawns and dusks.  If the weather was unfavorable then, wind warping the tides, he could wait until the full, and try with better light at moonrise and set.  When the next new moon came, however, he must be on his way to Sulûnduban.

Blowing through his whiskers, he stumped down the slight rise towards the mired beasts to stir Haust and his blockheads to greater activity, only to be brought up short by a Man's cry of "Greetings, Master Veylin!"

By Mahal, it was Dírmaen, standing on the crest of one of the many ridges in this disorderly spoil-dump of ground.  How long had he been spying on them—disdainful, no doubt, of their bad management?  Veylin bowed stiffly.  "Greetings, Dírmaen," he called back.  "I am surprised to see you.  No ill has befallen the folk of Habad, I hope, to keep you here."

Did the Man smile?  "No, they are all quite well.  The Lady is but a few furlongs off, harvesting roots.  I would be glad to fetch her, if you like.  Or may I be of other assistance?"  He cast a glance towards Haust and his ponies.

Whatever else one could say of this Man, it had to be allowed he was tenacious.  Surely this courtesy was in aid of his pursuit of Saelon.  "To meet with the Lady is always a pleasure, though perhaps she would not like to be interrupted at her work."

"Shall I ask her?"

"If you wish."  It was always a pleasure to see Saelon, though he would rather not be seen with such mortifying companions.

"Very well," Dírmaen said.  "I will bring her—or her word—shortly."

As the Ranger strode down off the ridge and out of sight, Haust left off staring and began to shove his way past the rest of his pack-ponies, still tied nose to tail and straggling across the narrow way.  "Who was that?"

"One of the Men who dwell at White Cliffs," Veylin said curtly, taking the bridle of Drig's rusty bay.  Ten heavily laden ponies in a single string, entrusted to a youngster: had the plumber never been out of the mansion before?  "Thyrð, try whether the nearer beast can be drawn to firmer ground without unloading it.  We do not want the Lady to see this botch."  Or Dírmaen shifting the small but weighty chests.  From their heft, he might think they carried gold.

Frowning as they took charge of his beasts without leave, Haust pressed, "And who is this Lady?"

"You have not heard tell of the Lady Saelon of Habad-e-Mindon and Srathen Brethil?"  He must be one of the few: between their friendship and the outlandishness of a woman ruling in her own name, she had excited gossip even in Sulûnduban.  Once Thyrð had the lead rope of the first mired beast in hand, Veylin walked Drig's bay on, drawing the rest of the ponies away and onto higher ground.  "She governs the westernmost of the Men of the West and is a good neighbor to us."

"What ails you, that you stand and watch?" Thyrð growled at his fellow prentices, taking up the slack on the lead rope and setting his feet.  "Why do you not get the chests off the other?"

Haust scratched his shaggy brown beard with a dubious look.  "Yet she wanders abroad digging roots?"

The elder of Haust's lads, Svart, black brows bristling at Thyrð's temerity, snapped back, "If you like wading through such muck, do it yourself!  Drig, go and cut brush to pave the way—if any is to be found in this barren land," he sniffed, glaring at the boggy moor around them.  "Why should you want to live where there is not even a decent track, let alone a road?"

Veylin cocked a forbidding brow at his nephew, and Thyrð shut his mouth, putting his anger into a heave on the rope instead.  "The Lady is also a master of herbs and devoted to her craft.  It is not unusual to find her out prospecting."

"Her menfolk cannot do that for her?"

The thought nearly made Veylin snort, but he would not scorn Gaernath and Halpan before one whose failings could not be excused by youth.  Nor diminish Saelon's dignity by telling how few men she had.  "Men divide work differently than we do.  Fruit and leaf and root fall to women, corn and beasts to men."

In the contest between Thyrð and the pony, the balance of stubbornness began to shift.  Neck stretched out and ears back, the beast finally drew up one foot despite the audible sucking of the bog, and came a little nearer solid ground.  Thyrð took a fresh grip on the rope and leaned back into his stance.

"Men are very peculiar," Haust dismissed.  "If you lame that beast, Thyrð, you must buy it."

"If we were a little nearer Gunduzahar," Thyrð declared hotly, "I would buy all these nags and sell them to the folk of White Cliffs to feed their dogs."

"Fish are cheaper, I am sure."

Many Dwarves found the women of Men shrill, their voices high and strange as birds', but Veylin had never misliked Saelon's mellow tone, even when she sounded this droll.  "Hail, Lady!" he greeted her, bowing.  "I wish I could say well met, but as you see, all is not well."

She, however, looked very well as she came down from the rise to meet him with a smile, save for a smudge of mud where she had shoved back a flyaway tress and a workmanlike smutching on her skirts.  "You shall soon be on your way.  That mire is not deep, only soft from the recent rain, and I saw one of your companions chopping bog myrtle a little way off.  Hai!" she cheered as Thyrð finally drew the first pony onto the track.  "I am sorry I have no ale to offer you, Master Thyrð, after such labor."

"I have some," Dírmaen offered, shrugging off his pack and untying the flap.

Saelon gave him an odd look.  "You do?"

"Aye."  The Ranger drew out a skin and tossed it down to Thyrð.  "Your health, Master."

Catching it neatly, his nephew regarded Dírmaen with narrowed eyes, anger quite quenched by curiosity.  "At your service."

"At yours and your family's," the Man answered, very properly.

"Will you not introduce me to your companions?" Saelon pressed, as Veylin stared suspiciously at Dírmaen.

Offended by his interference, Thyrð's impertinence, and the familiarity of the Men, Haust was repulsively reserved and Svart followed his master's example, but Saelon was too well-bred to take notice.  Having made her bob and offered her service, she drew off a little to finger consideringly the reddish flowers of some plant.  "Your journey was prosperous, I hope," she addressed him.

"I will not complain," Veylin replied, with great forbearance.  "And you?  Things are well at Habad?"

"Yes, and tolerable in Srathen Brethil.  You have just missed Halpan."  She moved on to another patch of flowers.

"Shall we help your fellow with the brush he is cutting?" Dírmaen asked as Thyrð capped the aleskin.

Veylin found it impossible not to stare at the Man.  Thyrð simply said, "You are too kind."

Yet the Ranger only smiled.  "Should I not speed you on your way?  No," he added, when Thyrð would return the skin to him.  "It is your uncle's."

So it was: the owl mouthpiece, carved of horn, was no Man's work.  It was the one he had left with him when last they met.  Something very strange was afoot, but Saelon remained silent, lashing the heather with a flowerstalk, watching Dírmaen closely with hooded eyes.

Insensible, Haust harrumphed.  "In return for a fee, no doubt."

"That is not our custom, Master," the Man replied coolly, gazing down on him with a hauteur greater than the plumber's.  "Though if it is yours to pay, I will not balk you."

Glowering at Veylin, Haust growled, "Come, Svart.  Let us see what delays Drig."

"This is too much, Dírmaen," Saelon said, once the two had stomped over the eastward rise.

"You wished them gone, did you not?"  There was an ease and familiarity in the Man's manner Veylin had never seen before, and he smiled like one who had drunk deeply.  "And Master Thyrð, at least, seemed to want a respite from their company."

Thyrð prudently kept silent.  "What is he about?" Veylin asked Saelon bluntly.

She shook her head at the Ranger, though her frown lacked conviction.  "I have charged him to be civil to you.  Do not make a mockery of it, sir!" she warned.

Dírmaen bowed low.  "Pardon me, Masters.  I mean no disrespect, but I find it hard to be sober."

He had never been otherwise.  "Why so?"

Reaching out, the Man took Saelon's hand.  "The Lady has consented to be my wife."

"Dírmaen!" Saelon exclaimed in reproach and with something like anxiety—but she did not deny it, nor free herself from his grasp.

She had found some faith in the Dúnedain, it seemed.  "Felicities to you both."  Veylin took care to match the Ranger's bow.  "When is to be the day?"

Now it was Dírmaen's turn to look disappointed: no doubt he had hoped for astonishment or even dismay to gild his triumph.  "Midsummer," Saelon answered.  "You will come, will you not?"

Midsummer!  Why must everything take place at Midsummer?  "Lady—" he regretted such an answer extremely in the face of her suspense "—I would, but my king particularly desires me to keep Midsummer at Sulûnduban."

"Oh."

As he clasped Saelon's hand closer, the Ranger's grave gaze of suspicion, long familiar, returned.  Did he think it a mere excuse, that he would slight Saelon from spite towards himself?  Why had he ever wished the Man well?  He always misunderstood him.  Giving way to the burning pain in his knee, Veylin sat down on the nearest boulder and scowled back at the Man, crossing his hands on the head of his stick.

Only to be surprised again.  Leaving go Saelon's hand, the Ranger murmured to her, "I will go and refill the waterskin."  And go he did, striding back the way they had come without a backward glance.

 So, he was magnanimous in victory as well as honorable.  That might bode well for Saelon.

"You are displeased," she said quietly.

Veylin gave a huff of a sigh.  "By many things at present.  Do not take it to yourself."

Saelon came and settled on another rock near to hand.  "I am sorry to add to your vexations."

"Who said you did?"

She sat there, mum, plaiting and replaiting her fingers in her lap, and Veylin felt a churl for damping her joy.  "When did you plight your troth?" he asked, to turn the conversation from himself.

"A few days ago.  You do not like him."

Why would she not leave it be?  "No.  Though neither do I think any great ill of him.  I have met many a worse Man."  Indeed, the Ranger was moderate in his mistrust; adverse, but not abusive.  It was only in comparison to Saelon and those who followed her that he seemed hostile.  "You are, however, the best judge of your own desires."

"He has said that he assured you that he does not believe there has been anything dishonorable between us," Saelon said with deliberate care.  "Is that so?"

"It is."  Veylin gazed on her with a frown.  "You doubt him, yet you will wed?"

"Is there not always some doubt?" she countered.  "How can one be certain beforehand?"

Long courtship; the trials of negotiating the marriage settlements, which laid bare not only the tempers of those betrothed but the characters of their kin; the desire that welded one soul to another.  Had the sparks these two struck from each other finally kindled to flame?

Yet the lusts of Men were fickle, it was said: vacillating and feeble.  Was that any foundation for a lifelong bond?  Veylin shook his head.  "Your folk are strange to us; our customs are not the same.  You must do as you think best."

"We have disagreed, it is true, but his manner is much improved.  I like him now very well—his silence suits me."

Did she mean to reconcile him to the match, or to persuade herself?  "I am glad to hear it, and wish you both very well."  If only for her happiness.

Such tepid commonplaces did not please her.  "I would be grieved if this injured our friendship."

"So would I."  Yet only time would tell.  Those who wed grew alike as time passed: would the Ranger become wiser, or she more narrow in her views?

They sat there for a time in the silence made when there was too much that ought not to be said.  Like contemplating a flawed gem, one hesitated to cut it, fearing it would shatter.  If she had come to love the Ranger, would she not resent criticism of him?  Or, Mahal forefend, should she come to rue her choice, would not her bitterness be compounded by the knowledge that she had spurned his warnings?  Friendship fell to ruin on rocks such as these.

Once again, Saelon's courage—or recklessness—was greater than his.  "Well," she observed, "we will see.  It is only a handfasting, after all."

Veylin frowned at the "only," which sounded far too cavalier for marriage.  "A handfasting?  What is that?"

"Has no one ever done this save the folk of Srathen Brethil?" Saelon exclaimed with a reassuring flash of anger, more like herself.  "It is a trial marriage, the term fixed.  Yes, I have doubts.  I doubt whether he can bear my temper, and refrain from trying for lordship.  He swears he can, but a man so smitten with love will submit to anything.  Think of Beren's mad quest!"

Veylin stared, taken aback, stupefied by the contradiction of a trial marriage.  To be wedded was to be joined, to make common stock not only one's possessions but one's very self.  That was why couples traded their true names, unlocking their souls before giving full admittance to body and mind.  How could such things be done on trial?  Secrets learned could not be taken back again.  Was it not uttermost folly to place oneself so totally in the hands of another without the surety of trust?

At their last meeting, he had asked Dírmaen why he did not trust Saelon's judgment, and now he was the one questioning it.  Were not all Men careless of security, or at least prized it less than other things?  And Saelon was singular: one who dared spurn society for a score of years and defy the wishes of Elves and Men would not fear to take the path she thought best, even if it were perilous.  Nor, if she had plighted her troth, was there wisdom in attempting to dissuade her.  He must hope that her shrewdness had not overreached itself.  "What is the term?"

"A year and a day."

So brief a time?  "That will be a sufficient test?"

"It is generally reckoned so."

Veylin rubbed at an imperfection on his stick with his thumb, wearing it a trifle smoother.  Perhaps so, for a Man.  A Dwarf would consider it nothing, the barest term for a betrothal even in time of war.  Dírmaen had not been able to bear her resistance for so long as a season before abandoning her . . . though he had come back again, timely to her need.  Was this gratitude on her part?  She was ever wont to overpay, to prove she was not mean.  "As I have said, how can I speak on such a matter?  Our people are too different.  Were you Khuzdul, you would be too young to wed."

That drew a wry smile from her.  "Whereas for Men, I am too old."

"Even for Dúnedain?"

"We endure longer," she told him, "and expect more of ourselves—else wise, there is little to choose between us."

What was too old among Men?  Dwarves frowned on couples who would not last long enough to see their children wed.  He had recently crossed that border himself, which was why many of his own people looked on him with less favor than previously.  Not that they did not respect his decision: yet they wished he had chosen otherwise.  It was wrong of him, perhaps, to leave them all in Vitnir's care or that of his son, who promised to be little better . . . but he had looked for a woman he could partner with through all the mansions of the West, as far as the Iron Hills.

Gems he could find, in the unlikeliest places, but not a spouse.  If Saelon chose to be pragmatic and take a Man who, though flawed, would be of some use, who was he to say that was unwise?  Had he not once told Dírmaen that he had never met anyone who needed helpmate more?  "Truly, Saelon, I hope you will be very happy.  From all I have seen, Dírmaen is a very able Man."

"If only we can keep from quarreling.  I hope," she said earnestly, "that his jealousy will cease to vex us, at the least."

Shaking his head, Veylin snorted.  Plainly she had never been in the grip of that possessive passion.  "Jealousy is rather accounted a virtue among us, so long as one's rights warrant it."  Presumably even a trial bond would provide Dírmaen better grounds for resenting Saelon's preference for a Dwarf's counsel.  "It shows that one prizes the treasure they have won."

"Treasure," Saelon scoffed.  "I am no prize."

On that point, Veylin was sure that he and the Ranger could agree—to disagree.


	31. Plumbing the Depths

_Let there be spaces in your togetherness._

—Kahil Gibran, _The Prophet: On Marriage_

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As had become their twice-weekly custom, the dwarf-women sat together after dinner, each with her own work.  Today they were in Sút's newly-finished parlour, still filled with the lingering smell of mortar rather than furnishings.  Auð found the black granite facing dark and the schist flooring coarse, but once her friend had crafted and hung her wonted profusion of silver lamps, such stone would give back the pale sheen Sút loved.  Nor would the chambers long remain so starkly bare: by the hearth, Hlin stitched slate-blue leather to cover the chair forms in Grani's workshop, while Auð hemmed silver-figured curtains for the bed-niche beyond the door behind her.  "Would it be better," she wondered aloud, tacking down a stray strand of fine-drawn wire, "to serve the Men cakes rather than pies?  There was nothing like mincemeat on their tables at Spring Day, and too many strange dishes may be off-putting."

"I think you should wait until they have agreed to come before making decided plans," Hlin said very sensibly, pausing to whet her needle.  Having secured the assurance that the Midsummer feast would be spread on Gunduzahar's broad green roof rather than in the hall, she could afford to be disinterested.  "Bersa is already grumbling about the outlay, but if only a few come, he will be less unwilling to show away."

"Time to make arrangements is growing short," Auð complained, vexed.  Especially if Bersa chose to be tiresome.  "Yet none of the men will carry the invitation to White Cliffs."  How many guests should they expect?  There were near thirty Men, but would the women come, save Saelon?  The Lady had said it would not be proper for her niece to visit their halls, and surely some must stay with the children; the youngest, at least.  Then menfolk must remain to guard them . . . .  Auð worried at an unruly strand of her beard.  A dozen, perhaps, if the Men of the Star were included?  Or would it be nearer a score?

"Is that not your brother's privilege?" Hlin asked.

"Yes—and no doubt he would be displeased to lose the honor, but where is he?"

"I do not understand what can be keeping him," Sút rumbled, bearing down on the silver bowl she was buffing, part of the set that would repay Hlin for her upholstery.  "The spring sessions are always brief, with so many of the men abroad on trade.  News!" she cried, as Auð scowled at her.  "We are in desperate need of fresh news.  This is a profitable little delf, Auð, but you must admit it provides scant material for conversation."

"The lead for the plumbing is massy," Hlin observed phlegmatically, damping the anxieties Sút had roused.  "Did Nyr not say the weather has been foul?  Perhaps they halted at one of the empty houses along the way."  As a coppersmith's spouse, she was used to the uncertainties of packing hundredweights of metal across roadless country.

"Rain would not delay Veylin," Sút scoffed.

"Maybe not," Hlin agreed, "but Haust is not so hardened a traveler, and Veylin could hardly leave him to find his own way here."

Catching Auð's reproachful glower, the silversmith shut her mouth and bent back over the half-gleaming arc of the bowl.  How could Sút be so thoughtless as to deepen her apprehension for Thyrð and Veylin, especially when brigands had been abroad?  To Sút, Veylin was no more than the leader of their venture, true; but such tactlessness in a friend was wounding, one more irritation in an unsettled season.

Still, it may have been a kindness in disguise—did not naming call?  The hour-candle had hardly sunk another mark before there was a knock at the door.  "Pardon the interruption," Thyrnir murmured, when Sút opened the door and he had bowed, "but Veylin has returned, with Haust in his train."

"And your brother?" Auð asked, still sharp.

"And Thyrð, though Oski remained in Sulûnduban to visit with his kin."  The fist at his belt, however, warned, _They are ill-tempered_.

Setting her needle in the fabric, Auð folded the curtain, laid it in her workbox, and stood.  "They are in the hall?"

"They are."

Yet when she passed into the hall, Auð did not see a russet head among those seated at table, and the only fiery red was Aðal's, bound back in a tight queue against the dust of his carving.  "—double the freight," an unfamiliar, crusty voice was saying.  "You assured me the journey would be short, Rekk."

"It has never taken me more than five days, with copper in train," Bersi observed, topping the stranger's tankard.  "Though the winter was uncommon wet, this side of the peaks, and the snow deep on them.  Did you come down the Alder-Stream, by White Cliffs?  That is the surest way."

"No.  Though we might have spared ourselves the effort of discretion."  This must be Haust: a wayworn fellow, eyes sunken above a draggled hazel beard, drinking deep.  Setting down his mug, he reached for the plate of meat pies set before him.  "Two Men waylaid us hardly a league from your door."

"Waylaid?" Rekk rumbled, brows lowering.

"What Men?" Bersi asked.

"Some impertinent fellow—Dírmaen, Veylin called him—and a drab creature he said was their lady."

Rekk laughed heartily, taking the pitcher to refill his own cup.  "Little escapes those two: Men of the West, wayfaring as Elves and near as long-sighted."

"All is well at White Cliffs?"  The coppersmith was frowning.

Haust took another draught to clear his mouth.  "So they said."

"Did Veylin quarrel with Dírmaen?"

"Not that I saw, though I found the Man offensive enough.  Are they always so presumptuous?"

Enough.  Auð curtly waved Sút and Hlin on as they hesitated, seeing her come back through the deepside arch.  At the bottom of the stair, she caught a glimpse of her younger son's back, hurrying down the passage she purposed to take.  "Thyrð!" she commanded.

He halted obediently, turning to face her—from the tray he carried, he had been to the kitchen—but she was not pleased by the jut of his beard.  "Mother?"

"I am glad to see you are well," she said tartly, casting a distasteful glance at the mud still clinging to his boots and the hems of his trews.  "Your uncle is indisposed, that he leaves Rekk and the Broadbeam to host our guest?"

"We have already had a surfeit of his company.  Rekk contracted with Haust," Thyrð huffed.  "Let him deal with him."

Auð raised her brows at this.  "We?  How has he offended you?"  She loved the steel in Thyrð's spirit, laborious though it was to hammer into shape, but he must learn to govern himself!  Youth must respect age, before their elders.

"May I not resent having to dig his ponies out of every slough between here and Sulûnduban, when he has two prentices of his own?  Or being on half-rations since the Crooked Pass?"

"Why did you not leave the work to his prentices?"

"Because," he answered, very curt, "I did not want to be on quarter-rations."

Looking down on the heavily-laden tray in her boy's hands, Auð wondered how much of his temper was due to hunger.  "You may resent it," she allowed, "but show some discretion!  We must live with him and his prentices, if we want proper baths.  Off with you, now, before your uncle grows as savage as yourself.  Tell him," she added, as Thyrð turned to go, "that I will be in my chamber when he has eaten, waiting to hear the news of Sulûnduban."  When her son stopped, casting an uncertain glance back over his shoulder, she narrowed her eyes at him.  "Do you have something else to say?"

"You know best," Thyrð murmured.  "But I believe his leg is very bad."

Auð stared at him, thin-lipped, until he hastened away.  She was not used to hearing excuses from her menfolk: the incompetence of others, incapacity . . . .  What was she to do?  Return to the hall for the evening and get shopworn news from someone who might be a fool?  Occupy herself elsewhere for an hour, until Veylin had eaten and drunk himself into better humour, and then go to him?  Or hold by her word and oblige her brother to come to her, putting her pride and his own above his pain?

Even supposing Haust was a poor packman, who had guided him but Veylin?  There had never been any difficulties when she traveled with him, not even this past winter, when snow lay deep about their paths.  Had he been preoccupied by graver ills, such as a break with Vitnir or Regin's displeasure?  Or had he taken them on less favorable tracks to avoid robbers still lurking in the mountains?

How could they expect her to celebrate Midsummer out of doors when she was beset by insecurity?  Marching down the corridor to Veylin's cherrywood door, Auð rapped on it sharply and waited, arms folded.

Veylin himself opened the door to her.  "Come in, Auð.  Nothing is wrong, I hope."

He sounded glum rather than cross, and had not yet changed out of his travel-stained clothes; the stick in his hand was the blackthorn cudgel he carried outside.  "Only if you are not well."

"I am fine!" he chuffed, returning to his table, though his gait was stiff.  "Or will be, if I can get a decent meal and keep away from Haust for a while.  Must you hear my news first, or will you tell me how things have been here while I eat?"

"There is little to tell," she said, taking one of the seats by the hearth as he filled cup and plate, "but I will stretch it out as best I can."  Yet peace and prosperity were soon got through: Sút's suite finished, the gallery for the first level rough-cut, and the jobber's dormitory extended; Nordri and Aðal began to speak seriously of a fane; the big node of agate Sannir found while delving the cistern.

"Banded or mossy?" Veylin asked, wiping traces of mutton gravy from his whiskers as he took up his wine.

"Mossy."

He drank deep, unmoved.  "Have Nordri and Rekk brought in the granite for the baths?"

"Yes.  We settled on the rose-colored."

Veylin looked at her, tousled brows knit.  "You wanted the green, did you not?"

Auð sighed regretfully.  "There is not enough of the proper hue, even for the women's side."

"Surely there is some other stone near enough the color."  Veylin frowned.  "If it is only a question of freight, I will pay it."

He had promised her whatever she desired, the dear fool, when giddy on a glut of fire opal.  "The pink will suit very well.  It takes a better polish than the green."

"You are sure?"

"Do you think I am pernickety?" Auð huffed, rising to put more coal on the fire.  Thyrð should have seen to it, but he was eating as only a long-stinted youngster could.  "There are better uses for the money than carrying stone over the mountains to humour a fancy.  Give me news instead!"

Veylin picked at the rim of crust on his apple tart.  "Where shall I start?"

"What is the worst?"

"Worst?"  It seemed to take him a long time to choose.  "Svarri has gone to Mahal—"

"Has she?  Well, the blessing on her."  One of the last of their mother's circle: Auð had been daunted by her tart tongue as a girl, but the broiderer had been kind when Thekk died, taking some of Auð's work so she could tend Veylin while his leg mended.  "I am sorry I was not there to see her under stone."

"—and Regin's regalia must be finished by the feast that opens the Midsummer Fair."

"Why?"  Veylin would consider that a trial—he would have to go back to Sulûnduban again as well hasten his work—but there was no real ill in it.

"Because Reynir is to be prenticed to Gróin, Farin's son, of Durin's Line, at the Midsummer Fair, and Regin means to honor Gróin and his kin with an especially grand feast."

"Of Durin's Line!" Auð exclaimed.  Children of the Eldest though they were, the Longbeards had come to the Blue Mountains after the war with scarcely more than mail on their backs.  She remembered the grousing: after so many had died avenging Thrór, Firebeard and Broadbeam alike resented that the exiles should choose to settle in their lands, where ore and coal were no longer plentiful for the taking, instead of remaining in Dunland or joining their kindred in the Iron Hills.  And the younger men's beards bristled when Durin's Folk courted lasses in Sulûnduban and Barazdush, so few of their own having escaped the dragon.  The kinship of all Khazâd notwithstanding, there might have been a breach that would have proved difficult to mend save that Regin, then new-Woken, was unstinting in his support of his elder brother's children and cold to any who spoke openly of their discontent.  Dwarves were too few to quarrel so, he maintained; if they divided, their enemies would make—and he used the word—short work of them.

Despite Regin's backing, Thráin and his son chose to delve their halls nearer Barazdush, just this side of the gulf that had swallowed Gabilgathol and Tumunzahar.  No doubt Thráin had found it easier to bargain with Hilmir, the Broadbeams' king: a stout, sage fellow, but not forged of the same metal as Regin.  Only seven-score Longbeard families had sought refuge in Sulûnduban, though there were many more widowers and bachelors in its workshops and outlying mines, toiling to re-establish themselves in some dignity.  And now the king was going to send his heir to labor among their kindred?  "What is Regin thinking?"

Veylin shook his head.  "I do not know.  It was announced in council, not discussed."

Auð set the poker back in its stand.  Who could argue with the judgment of the Reawoken, whose penetration was beyond the understanding of common Dwarves?  "Where does Gróin stand in the succession, now that Thráin is lost?"

"Not very near, though he is the eldest surviving of Durin's Line.  Ironfoot is the heir, unless Thorin finds a wife; Fundin's sons, Balin and Dwalin, come before Gróin and his."

"They dwell together at Furnace Fells, do they not?"  Thorin had a sister, she had heard.  Perhaps Reynir could even the marriage account a trifle.

"Save for Dáin, who rules those in the Iron Hills."

It was not like Veylin to be taciturn; ordinarily, he would relish recounting his visit to the halls Grór had founded in the east, or praise the valor of Dáin, the merest lad when he slew Azog before the Great Gates of Khazad-dûm.  "Why are you so grum?"  Auð regarded her brother narrowly.  "Are you not glad to have Regin flaunt your work before Thorin's kin?  Or will Thorin be at the feast as well?"

"No, Mahal be praised," Veylin rumbled.  Somehow, he had taken a deep dislike to Oakenshield.  "I am jaded by too many days wasted in the saddle, that is all.  Regin pressed me to remain at the mansion until the feast, but I wish to visit my opal lode.  If there will be time, with all the work I must do on Regin's chain before setting out again.  I would curse Haust for delaying us, if our plumbing would not suffer for it!  Why must so much take place at Midsummer?"

"Midsummer!"  Auð gave a guilty start.  The doings of the royals had driven all else from her mind.  "What of our feast for the Men?"

"Has the invitation been given?" Veylin asked, with curious gravity.

"Not yet—none of the other men would go in your stead," Auð complained.  "But we have made the puddings and started malting the barley."

Veylin grunted, staring into his wine-cup.  "We will have to put it off.  I do not think the Men would come, in any case."

"Because you will not be here?"

Her anger at his perfunctory dismissal of her effort fell like flame on cold clinker.  "Because they will be celebrating the union of Saelon and Dírmaen at White Cliffs."

"Where did you hear that?" she challenged, before remembering what Haust had said in the hall.

"From the couple themselves."  Setting down his cup, he pushed it away from him.  "We met them as we came down across the moss."

"Did you not even mention our feast?"

"I was given no opportunity!" he snapped, like overburdened stone—a rare thing for him.  "The Ranger spied us almost the moment Haust's dratted beasts bogged in the mire.  I did not understand why he was so genial, until he crowed out his triumph.  If Saelon had not pressed me to witness their vows," he muttered, darkly harsh, "I should never have believed him.  Having disappointed her, was I to urge her to give over her nuptials in favor of dining here?"

"Yes, if you are so sure she is being a fool!  Is she your friend, or is she not?"

Clenching his fists in his beard, Veylin cried, "She is not Khazâd!  How can I know what is wise, for Men?"

It was good to hear him acknowledge it, though his distress was hard to see.  He was too apt to polish his reputation as one who saw into folk of other races as into rough gemstones.  "Are there different kinds of wisdom?  She seems to value your counsel in other things."  This should cut off the scurrilous rumors his regard for the Lady had raised, however; that would be no bad thing.

"Lordship, and dealing with those who would humble her: matters I know well.  But how should I give advice on marriage?"

Auð snorted.  At least his wits were not entirely astray.  "Are you saying that you are baffled not by Men, but by women?"

"The women of Men," Veylin declared, with inarguable conviction, "are unlike the women of the Khazâd."

"True," Auð conceded.  Though, as she gazed on her brother's louring uncertainty, she could not but wonder how deep his knowledge ran . . . and where the differences lay.  Their being came alike from the Allfather, it was said, though the Fathers of the Dwarves were eldest, forged to endure by Mahal.  Were the women of Men strange only in form: the same brew, as it were, in different cups?  Or did folk take their character from their shaping, as the same stone might be a strong wall or a fine-featured carving, whet an axe or grind corn to flour?  Was the Lady's freedom recklessness or courage?  Regarding the Ranger, was her heart inconstant, or had she always wanted him, if she could get her own terms?

No wonder Veylin was tearing his beard, mazed in such mysteries.  These things were best left to the masters of the teachings.  Sitting down across from her brother, she took up the cup he had abandoned and drained it dry.  "Well, this is all very vexing.  Bersa will contrive to be put out and pleased at the same time, I am sure.  I think you will have to take me to the Fair so I can escape him."  She would be able to get that rust-touched green woolen she wanted for Thyrnir's cloak, silver broidery wire to trade to Rian, and a fair whack at the cloth new-brought to market, the work of women like the Lady and her niece through the long winter—plus the satisfaction of assaying the kin of Oakenshield for herself.  Reaching across the table, she fingered a small tear in Veylin's jacket.  "You will need a new tunic."

"The one you made me for the West Council in the autumn has hardly been worn," he grumbled, too wise to object outright.

"Once folk have admired Regin's new chain, they will look to you.  We cannot have you less splendid than your work!"

Veylin huffed.  "You just want to see your work next to mine at the high table."

"There is that."  Auð smiled.  "Pay me well, and I will buy truffles.  We can serve them to the Lady when we return.  That should requite her for your absence on the day of her wedding."

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Notes

**Black granite** : both diorite and gabbro can go by this name; this is the harder diorite, which takes a better polish.

**Jobber** : one who works by the job; i.e., on short-term contracts.

**Fane** : sacred place.

**"the gulf that had swallowed Gabilgathol and Tumunzahar"** : the Gulf of Lhûn.  A comparison of the maps of First Age Beleriand and Third Age Eriador show that the Gulf of Lhûn cuts the Ered Luin where the River Ascar ran up to the great dwarf-mansions of Belegost and Nogrod.

**"made the puddings"** : these would be something in the line of a steamed plum-pudding, the spirit-drenched ancestor of holiday fruitcake.  Those less than a month or two old were considered hardly worth eating, and true high-day versions were made a year in advance.

**"malting the barley"** : an early stage in ale-brewing.  See the entry on "Brewing" in the [Dûnhebaid Dictionary](http://astele.co.uk/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=7676&SPOrdinal=1) for details.

**Clinker** : the [fused, slag-like impurities](http://www.tinkaresources.com/files/image/Clinker%20Zone.jpg) left after coal has been burnt.

**Allfather** : Ilúvatar, "Father of All"; Eru.  Although Mahal/Aulë made the Fathers of the Dwarves, he could not give them souls of their own; this Eru did when he accepted them, although he referred to Dwarves as "the children of my adoption" as opposed to "the children of my choice."  Or so some Elves tell.

**"masters of the teachings"** : many have observed that there is something Jewish about Dwarves—the echoes of a Semitic language in Khuzdul, their preoccupation with wealth and trade, the disdain and hostility they get from others.  So when seeking terms for Dwarvish religious life, I have turned to Jewish models, and it seems propitious that the Hebrew word _rabbi_ means "my master."


	32. Wait to Watch the Water Clear

_A lively understandable spirit_  
_Once entertained you._  
_It will come again._  
_Be still.  
_ _Wait._

—Theodore Roethke, _The Lost Son_

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"Masters?" Saelon called tentatively at the low entrance to their cuttings, stooping to take the weight of the pails off the yoke and peer within, which seemed black after the brightness of the day.  She knew they were here: their sturdy ponies were tethered on the slope below, tearing at the knee-high grass with greedy teeth, and the door they had put in to keep the children from mischief stood unlocked and open.  But the Dwarves themselves were not to be seen, nor could she hear the ringing of hammer on rod or chisel.  That Veylin did not like her handfasting she knew, but had she angered them all with her choice?

Nordri popped out so suddenly she almost startled, which would have upset the pails, to everyone's grief.  "Lady!  Welcome!"  Though in his shirtsleeves and dusted with white stone as if with flour, the mason bowed low.  "Your pardon, but we are at our dinner.  Will you join us?  You like Brockenborings cheese, I understand."

"Brockenborings?"

"A village in the Shire, where they tunnel in hills of good limestone.  That is where they age their cheese," Nordri explained, cocking an eye at the sky and looking pleased at the fair-weather clouds.

Who would know she favored Shire cheese, save Veylin?  Or one of his prentices.  "If you wish.  I have brought ale—" she unhooked pails from yoke, which she leaned against the cliff-foot.  "You did not stop in when you arrived, and it has been long since we had a visit from you.  Things are well at Gunduzahar, I hope."

"Very well!"  Nordri beamed.  "No, Lady; let me take those.  It was good enough that you carried them across!  We did not visit earlier, for we came at dawn: it is better to work in the mornings on such warm days.  Watch your head, these first few paces.  But we intended to come over once we were finished for the day."

When the ale would have been even more welcome, perhaps.  Saelon ducked to follow him.  "If you would have more leisure then—"

"Lads," the mason called into the dimness, raising his burden, "who wants White Cliffs ale?"

There was such a clamor of greetings and a rush for the drink that her hesitant words were lost.  They might well have appreciated the ale more at the end of their work, but clearly it was far from unwelcome now.  As her eyes grew used to the faint light—it was not very dark, in fact, though there were only two lanterns, the stone being so pale—Saelon found herself in a much wider chamber than she recalled from her last visit.  Rougher-cut than the hall they had delved for her in the opposite cliff, the stone fresh, unstained by smoke and the smut of daily use, it was a pleasant place on a summer day.  Tables and benches of flawed stone stood near the entrance, spread with the makings of a hearty meal: bread and meat and cheese, little pots with knives sticking out of them, a stained cloth heaped with strawberries, and a small tapped firkin.

"Here, Lady," Aðal said, shoving his own plate and the one beside him over.  "We will make room for you.  Neðan!  A plate for Lady Saelon."

There was no help for it.  Almost without effort on her part, and over her faint objections, a plate was brought, and filled with crusty wheaten bread, slices of ham and firm ripe cheese, and little onions they said were pickled.  Gamal helped her to mustard from one of the pots, and Aðal to strawberries.

Nordri sighed contentedly, setting down his jack.  "A fellow would have to travel far to find a better heather ale than yours.  How can we repay you for this kindness, Lady?"

"If this is not enough," Saelon nibbled curiously at one of the onions, "then pray give me news of you all.  We have not seen you since Spring Day, save for a few chance meetings, and summer is nearly on us."

The mason piled meat high on his bread, as artfully as he laid stone on stone.  "Work has been tolerably brisk.  We are improving our halls, which is why we have come for more limestone; but the gallery and baths had to be opened before we could beautify them."  He gazed at the stone above their heads as an Elf might gaze on a sky full of stars.  "I hope you will have a chance to see the gallery, when we are finished."

"I would like that."  Baths?  Dwarves, too, had baths?  Saelon wondered if they would be anything like those of Mithlond.  Looking on these small, rough-clad men, their hands horny with callous and with grit in their hair, who would guess that they came from such a sumptuous home?  "And Master Veylin—things are well with him?  He was out of temper when our paths crossed . . . was it a fortnight ago?"  Three weeks, in truth; or would be tomorrow.  Near a month and never a visit, though the weather had been fair

Nordri chuckled.  "His journey from Sulûnduban was trying, Lady, and longer than planned—his companions were not used to our narrow northern tracks.  Better feeding soon mended his mood.  Yet," the mason confessed, less lightly, "we had intended to invite you and all your folk to feast with us at Midsummer, as a return for the noble hospitality you have so often shown us."  Saluting her with his jack, he passed it off to one his prentices.  "Fill this again, Balnar."

"Oh!  That is very kind—"

"Kindness has nothing to do with it," Nordri assured her, most amiably.  "But our king desires Veylin to attend the Midsummer Fair in our mansion, and he would be grieved if we hosted you without him.  I have been charged, therefore, with asking whether another day would be acceptable.  The last week in Cermië, perhaps?  Or if you would prefer a night-feast in the heat of summer, the full of the moon in Úrimë?"

"We would be delighted to feast with you at any time, save during harvest—but that will not be until Yavannië.  You will still come to us then, will you not?"

"I will come, and Grani too, to take the next payment on Maelchon's house . . . and if it is offered," Nordri allowed, "how could I refuse to take a cup or a bite to give thanks for the bounty of your crop?  How does it fare?" he asked, with a touch of concern.  "The field does not look so full this year."

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It was not so full, Saelon reflected, running her fingers over the tips of the young bere as she paced past the field, but there was nothing ill in that.  They had reaped the virgin strength of the ground in two harvests of extraordinary bounty, and only greed could be disappointed by this more moderate growth, which would commonly be considered excellent.  Maelchon's new field would have reassured the Dwarves, however, if they had passed that way.

She was no less grasping.  Of course there were many demands on Veylin's time: chieftain of his people, lord of Gunduzahar, craftsman . . . and she knew, better than most, how his _raug_ -rent leg hindered him.  Selfish, to expect him to clamber back on a pony after so long in the saddle, when he must soon take to the road again, especially since she had disobliged him by turning to Dírmaen.  They had already met five times this year.  How could she want more?

Once, the only company she had wanted was that of the waves.  Had it been but a few years ago?  Climbing up the shifting sands, she paused at the crest of the dunes to look out over the sea.  It soothed her, still, and its potent beauty had not dimmed; yet it did not speak to her as it had before all these people came, or she could not hear it over the clamor of their voices.  Should she not mourn such a loss?

No answer came to her—not to that, nor to other uncertainties that troubled her—and after a time, she slithered down the sands to the strand.  The tide was at the springs and on the ebb.  Since her pails were empty, let her fill them with slake and dulse.

She was far down the ripple-wrinkled shore, teasing linarich from the bloody rags of dulse in a small pool when something large and dark pitched into the pail beside her, making her jump.  Catching a glimpse of flailing, red-tipped claws, Saelon looked up—to find Dírmaen only a little way off, grinning, another lobster near his bare feet.  "You relished these creatures too, did you not?" he asked.

"I did.  Be wary," she warned, the fright making her sharp, "or it will have your toes!"

"It has already had a finger," he confessed as if abashed, coming to show her the wound.  "Will you salve it for me?"

"Salt water is cleansing," she sniffed.  A cruel pinch, no more; the skin was hardly broken.  He was quick, to seize the creatures with so little harm; and deft.  So deft that his other hand was already on her waist, and when he leaned down for a kiss, she could not resist nipping him.

"I do not think you should eat these," he protested, pulling away.  "You are snappish enough already!"

"Hmph.  You knew what you were about," Saelon dismissed, drawing his head back down so she could soothe his lip with a kiss of gratitude.  "Thank you.  They will make a very fine chowder."

His smile was a joy to see; like a boy's, pleased to please.  "I thought you would like them.  What news from the Dwarves?"

There seemed to be nothing but curiosity in his face.  "They are expanding their halls," she said, bending back to the dulse so he would not see her unease.  "Nordri fears there may be a dearth of corn this winter: from Evendim westward, he says, planting was late."

"If many were as late as in Srathen Brethil," Dírmaen judged, recapturing the lobster that was crawling from her pail, "that is a danger.  Let us pray for a long summer!"

"They did their best," Saelon defended Halpan and the husbandmen who had dared to return to their homes, ravaged by _raug_ and reiver.  "The ground was too wet to plough!"

"That will have been the problem in most places."  Trussing the lobster with his remaining bracer, he laid it on the sand beside the other.  "Did Nordri bring word of anything else across the Lune?"

She was too ready to take offense, still.  "The Shire cheese I like is aged in limestone tunnels," she told him, turning her conversation with the Dwarves over in her mind.  "Our cliffs are limestone, are they not?"  Cheese did keep well in the hall, even in summer; better than it ever had in Srathen Brethil . . . .  The weed was anchored fast, and she drew her knife to cut it.

"That is what the Dwarves call it.  Was that all their news?"

She must harden herself; his animosity had to be faced sooner or later.  ""No.  They have invited us to a feast, either late in Cerveth or early in Urui."

"You and I?"

"All my folk, Nordri said.  They wished to entertain us at Midsummer, but Veylin must be elsewhere."

"I remember," Dírmaen said; and after a pause, "Just as well, perhaps.  Elsewise a choice would have had to be made between their feast and our handfasting."

"I have already chosen between you," Saelon muttered, tightening her grip on the tough, slippery fronds.

Silence; then his fingers brushed her hip, a testing caress that ranged further when she did not kick.  "I would be sorry to cut off your friendship," he murmured, taking her in his arms as she straightened with the dripping hank of dulse.  "This does not sound like a breach, however.  As soon as his duties are done, Veylin will make amends for his absence."

The press of Dírmaen's lips on her hair did not aid thought.  "The feast is to repay all for the hospitality we have shown them, not to celebrate our handfasting."  Indeed, Veylin had been so discomposed by the nature of her coming union that she wondered if he had spoken of it to his fellows.  Nordri had said nothing, congratulatory or otherwise, and she had feared to mention it.  Too different, Veylin had declared; and he was nearer forgiving than any Dwarf she had met.

"Well, and that is good, too."  Dírmaen seemed determined to take all she said well.  "I am glad they value Maelchon and the others.  Dwarves do not often meet with such kindness as they find here."

"Why, when they are as decent as other folk?"

Dírmaen was silent for a while; thoughtful.  Seeking an answer, or an answer he thought would content her?  "Dwarves are commonly colder and more close than some of your neighbors, and folk find them outlandish and queer.  They are unfriendly, on the roads, and drive hard bargains."

There was no cozening in that.  "Is that why you mistrust them?"

"Yes.  And they pay me in the same coin."

"I wish," Saelon said, low, "that you might turn that tide."

"For your sake, love, I will try—but I know of no one who had done it save you, and I do not know how you accomplished it."  Sighing, Dírmaen released her, so she could put the dulse in her pail.  "Others have saved Dwarves' lives: the Dwarves repay them, but they do not become their friends into the bargain.  If you have any suggestions . . . ."

She shook her head.  "I cannot tell how it happened.  Who can, with friendship?  The giving of great things made it easier to give little ones: shells from strand or stone, cups of ale or wine, words of counsel.  I was much in need of counsel that first year, when Lindon seemed unfriendly and Râdbaran would set me aside."

"I regret that Arathorn sent him," Dírmaen muttered, kicking at a broken whelk.  "Yet you must admit that most women would have welcomed such relief."

"True."  Urwen had, without shame.  "Is Argonui very angry with me?"

Dírmaen snorted, mouth crooked.  "If he were, Lady, you would know it."  When she scowled, displeased with so dismissive a reply to her long-held anxiety, he relented.  "You are a complication: one of many, though more chancy than most, since you are embrangled with Elves and Dwarves.  He was relieved to hear you have come to an agreement with Lindon, but would like to hear that the Dwarves have settled as well, if your friendship might involve you in their quarrels."

"If so, he can disavow us.  I have long been infamous: my intransigence established beyond doubt, and we have not given him his due."

"Termagant," her love murmured, reaching out to capture and smooth a wind-whipped lock of her hair.  "You will drive me to despair.  Great hearts are not so common that we can afford to cast them away.  Argonui would know how to value you, if you would but meet him."

Saelon smacked his hand away: gently, for such words were sweet to hear, nonsense though they were.  "You are besotted.  I know my worth among my kindred too well."  Her father had brought many Dúnedain to their hall, to hunt the stout stags of the Ered Luin and appraise his daughters.  Few had favored her with a second glance, taking her lack of height for evidence of Edain blood.  For all she knew, Argonui had been one of them, cloaked by another name.  That might be awkward, particularly if he were the one who had styled himself Greymantle.  "And false courtesy, such as Râdbaran's, fetches out all my devils."

"Râdbaran was more Arathorn's man than he is Argonui's."  Dírmaen eyed the pail of weed, then fetched his lobsters and tucked them on top.  "He spent some years in the service of Gondor in his youth, and returned with . . . ." he hesitated, as if seeking fit words, before finishing plainly, "affectations of nobility that have offended others than yourself.  Argonui prefers the manners of the sons of Elrond to those of the South Kingdom."

And she had fostered Halmir with such a man?  "Râdbaran is out of favor with the Chieftain?"

"That is more than I said," Dírmaen chastened her.  "I only wished to assure you that few Dúnedain are like Râdbaran."

Saelon shut her mouth before _That I knew_ escaped.  "You remember that my nephew is in the man's charge?"

"Yes."  Going up the strand to where the yoke rested on the other pail, already stuffed with slake, he bent to lift it.  "Shall I carry these for you?"

At least he asked.  "If you wish."

Silence lay between them as made their way towards the dunes, almost a tangible thing.  His silence suited her, she had told Veylin; but it did not please her now.  Policy and partisanship were the province of men, and even those who loved her were not forthcoming.  How could she govern well, if she did not know those she must deal with?

If she had gone to Argonui, as she ought, she would not be so dependent on the deficiencies of the men about her.  The Chieftain favored the manners of Imladris, did he?  Well, she had gotten more consideration from Círdan than—

"Râdbaran is a most worthy man," Dírmaen declared suddenly, when they had reached her rock.  "Time spent in his household would benefit any Dúnadan, especially one such as your brother's son, who will be a lord.  You should not fret that you have done wrong by accepting his offer to foster the boy.  Still, excellent as Crabiant is, that may not be the best place.  I cannot advise you in this!" he exclaimed, as she stared at him.  "I am a simple Ranger, and know little of how matters stand among the lords of our folk."

"What _do_ you know?"

He had a distaste for dishonor, so it took him some paces to reconcile himself to her demand.  "It is said that Arathorn placed such trust in Râdbaran because he is his son; and that Argonui is cool to him because Râdbaran is the elder."

Saelon halted, staring.  "How could that be?"

"Arathorn was sword-brother to Hirlach, the heir of Hirforn, who was then the Warden of Fornost.  Hirlach was slain when Orcs came out of the Misty Mountains in the years before the Long Winter.  Arathorn gave much comfort to his friend's widow, they say," Dírmaen muttered, "and the son she bore tardy, if he were her husband's.  Yet Hirforn acknowledged the babe as his grandson, so Râdbaran is Warden."

The sameness of Dúnedain was the One's gift to Dúnadenith, her grandmother had once observed, most sardonically.  "Oh."  How awkward, for both lord and liege, when their places would be reversed if the vassal were not misbegot.  And Râdbaran emulated the Stewards?  "I see."

"Do not see too much," Dírmaen warned.  "I know you think ill of the man."

"I think ill of his dismissal of me, not of the man himself."  The shrewdness of his courtesy would be no ill weapon for a man reputed to be the Chieftain's by-blow.  If he were a bastard, the fault was not his.  "I did not know he was the Warden of Fornost, when he was here."

"It is perilous to reveal such things, when we wander beyond our strongholds."

"Hm."  Too true; the Edain knew her kin as the get of the kings that were gone, but not where their men roamed in their youth, or to what purpose.  "And you," she murmured, setting a finger on the bronzed skin of his breast, where his shirt opened.  "Who are you, when you are at home?"

He captured her hands before she could take more liberties, and lifted them to his lips.  "My lady's liege, if she will have me."

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Notes

**Brockenborings** : a village in the East Farthing of the Shire, in the hills near Scary.  The geographical setting would seem suitable for a cheese like that originally aged in caves in the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset.

**Firkin** : a unit of volume equal to a quarter of a barrel, or 9 gallons (41 liters), for ale or beer.

**Greymantle** : a particularly pretentious by-name, especially in the Sindarin Dúnedain favor for names.

**Crabiant** : Sindarin, "raven bridge."  The seat of the Wardens of Fornost, now that Norbury of the Kings lies in ruins.  Since the ruins at Fornost are referred to as Deadman's Dike, I have borrowed this name from a place near Hadrian's Wall.

**Warden of Fornost** : a title of my devising for the keeper of the royal fortress at Fornost.  Such an office would be held by a high noble, and it is not unknown for the descendants of such stewards (the Stewarts/Stuarts) or majordomos (the Carolingians) to end up on the throne.

**Dúnadenith** : Sindarin, "women of the West."


	33. Hand to Hand

_Yet I would not have all yet,_  
_Hee that hath all can have no more,_  
_And since my love doth every day admit_  
_New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;_  
_Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,_  
_If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it:  
_ _Loves riddles are_

—John Donne, "Lovers infinitenesse"

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"Wait," Randir commanded, putting out his arm to bar the door.

Dírmaen scowled at the tiresomeness of his friend.  Voices were raised in the hall: women's voices, Rian's above all.  "No!  You may not!  Not today!  All is in hand, and Fransag will be here shortly, should I need help.  You are not to worry yourself with such things."

Saelon answered, too low for him to catch the words, but there was no mistaking the tone.  Mad.  He was mad, to be taking this woman.

"Whatever you please, so long as it is not work and you keep away from Dírmaen until midday," Rian came back, undaunted.  "Go to the sea, if that will soothe you!  Or to the hidden pool.  But return in time for Muirne to put up your hair!"

Meeting Randir's look of amused pity, Dírmaen muttered, "You two are enjoying this."

"Helping our friend and our kinswoman to happiness?  Who would not enjoy such a charge?"

"There is no call for this foolishness.  This is not a wedding."  What other nonsense would they subject them to?  Bad enough that he had found an all-too-willing Murdag in his bed last night, insistent on teaching him a husband's duties.

"If Saelon is kind, it will be.  Would you tempt fate by neglecting the customary rites?"

"I do not think fate cares one way or the other."

Randir laughed.  "Confess!  You would have Saelon as Beren had Luthien, if you dared, wandering together in the wild heedless."

"Who spoke of tempting fate just now?" Dírmaen said, very sharp.

"There is no fell father to forbid," Randir dismissed.  "Stay, while I see if your lady has gone."

"She is not mine yet—and may never be, if you try her temper too much!"  Randir did not hear, putting his head out the chamber door to speak with Rian.  Dírmaen blew out a vexed breath.  If this was what good will inflicted, perhaps they would have done better to take each other under a may-bush.

Such thoughts stirred things prematurely.  Never had he felt this restless, keen and anxious together, save in the dawning dark before his first battle.  Maybe he should not have sent Murdag away so peremptorily.

"All clear," Randir reported, grinning, and held the door for him.

"Good morning, Dírmaen," Rian greeted him, with a smile that must be turning Randir's bones to water.  The graciousness she had not given her aunt was all for him, it seemed.  "A most blessed Loëndë to you!  Can we give you a good breakfast, or will you save your appetite for the feast?"

"And a very fair Loëndë to you, Rian.  Whichever you please; I would not add to your work."

She laughed at him and gestured towards the end of the board that was not cluttered with bowls and joints waiting to be barded and trussed.  "Sit, please!  Muirne, we can spare an egg from the baking, and there are rashers hid under the pot lid—just put them to the griddle to rewarm them."

Then she darted to her chest, which sat by the chamber that had been Finean's.  Once again folk were being shuffled about: Rian would move back in with Unagh, and Finean and Canand would join Randir and Gaernath so he and Saelon would have her chamber to themselves, as they did when he was fevered.  Throwing open the lid, the young Dúnadaenth drew out a bundle of cloth and brought it to him.  "I hope you will be very happy," she prayed, pressing it into his hands, then set a swift kiss on his cheek.

Dírmaen stared at her in astonishment.  "Lady, what is this?"

There was the prettiest flush on her cheek, and the sight of Randir's jealousy was a revenge he could relish.  "A bridal gift, I suppose, or I will hope so.  I should be glad to call you uncle."

Even though Dírmaen kissed her hand, such words soothed her swain.  "Thank you, lady."  Unfolding the bundle, he found a shirt and breeches of clear grey, plain but very well cut.  "There was no need for you to go to such trouble."  She had been toiling over Saelon's dress, he knew, though they had taken care that he did not see it.

"I will not have Saelon finer than you," she declared, and went back to the hearth to hurry his breakfast.

So his morning went, a mix of good-natured wit and kindness that went to his heart.  He had not known these folk thought so well of him.  Like Saelon, he was not allowed to lift a useful hand: Gaernath had taken his patrol, riding out before dawn to be sure of returning in time to witness the handfasting, and Hanadan blacked his belts and boots with great care and Artan's help.  Teig, that simple man, more at ease with his dogs than his fellows, put the leashes of a pair of hart-hounds in his hand without a word, while Airil begged him to take a seat beside him in the warmth of the sun, on the edge of the cliff-shelf where the busy women did not come.  There the cottar gave him a great deal of earnest advice on the management of a wife.  Out of respect to the gaffer's grey hair—he was the only man older than Dírmaen here save Canand, who still sought a wife—he listened attentively, even when Airil assured him that a woman wanted beating once and a while to be sure of her husband's care.

"Beat the Lady," Finean scoffed, coming over to them from where he and Leod were setting out the boards for the feast.  "You did not see the reiver she bled like a pig.  The lads say she is returning, sir," he warned Dírmaen.  "You had best make yourself scarce until she is within."

"Thank you, Finean."

When they had gone a few paces together, the grizzled cottar murmured, "I have seen to Mada, sir.  All will be as you asked."

Clapping Finean on the shoulder, Dírmaen took himself off towards the steep path that led to the tumbled ruin of the tower.  That should be far enough out of the way for a little peace, and he would like to look down on the track that led from the cliff over the ridge to the shore beyond during the light of day.

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Saelon sat on her kist, trying not to fidget as Muirne tucked roses into her braid-crowned hair.  Her hand kept straying to her neckline, which Rian had cut lower than she liked.  Not that it was _very_ low, yet—

"Will you wear your sea-jewel, Lady?" Muirne asked, surveying her handiwork and reaching for another rose.  They had found some that were only touched with pink, which went very well with the silvery willow-green of her gown; more were twined in the boughs of blooming rowan and elder that festooned the chamber.

A deep bed of heather, both long and wide, had also been laid while she was bathing, and Saelon eyed the pale linen upon it with trepidation.  "No.  Master Veylin and Dírmaen are not friends."

"Surely Dírmaen does not believe the wicked things Lis said!" Muirne exclaimed, hand and rose poised.

"No, but you know what men are like."  And women.  She and Dírmaen must remember to counterfeit the stain the sheets ought to bear before morning.

Smiling, the young woman twined the rose in with a cluster of others at her temple.  "I have been fortunate.  Artan is a dear, always loving and patient with my faults."

Saelon could not help but return her smile.  Though they were two years wed and had two lusty weans, the couple were still winsome as sweethearts.  "Bless you, lass, your only fault is shyness, and I never heard a husband complain of that."

Muirne colored up prettily, pinker than the roses.  "I am timid," she agreed.  "Suffering strikes all around me, and I cannot help thinking it is only a matter of time before it finds me."

"Do not believe such things!" Saelon protested, taking her hand.  "If there is any justice in the world, we have had our full share of woe and the wheel turns now in our favor."

"Is that why you are so brave?" Muirne murmured, as if taking a great liberty.  "You believe the god over the water is just?"

"Brave?  I am not brave, lass."  Otherwise her stomach would not be in such a knot.  She did not even have the excuse of dreading the loss of her maidenhead!  "Only cussed."  She cocked an eye at her.  "Why do you think I get on well with Dwarves?"

Muirne threw up a hand to muffle her laugh as the door opened.  Rian, in a kirtle of fresh green and with a wreath of sunny buttercups on her dark hair, came to consider Saelon with a critical eye.  "There now!  That should ravish him.  Even Mother could have found no fault with you."

Saelon snorted and dabbed at the bunch of roses, uncertain that they were secure enough for dancing.  "If it were not for the _raugs_ , my handfasting might have been the death of her."

Rian huffed in exasperation and rolled her eyes.  "Insufferable woman!  If it were not for the _raugs_ , you should never have met Dírmaen.  Come, Muirne—let us take her out to him so he can mend her bitterness with mead and kisses."

Mead and kisses might lead to regret as well as repair . . . but it was too late to balk now, after Rian and the others had gone to so much trouble.  "If he can cure that," she sniffed, rising with dignity, "I will acknowledge him as my master."

As they came out into the hall, Unagh hastened to take the griddles from the fire, wiping her hands on her apron before snatching it off and hurrying after them.  Everyone else was already outside, and as Saelon stepped out of the cliff's slender shadow, their eyes smote her.

Unaccountable, when she had dared fleer at Círdan's court, but the fixed regard of her own assembled folk struck the breath from her body.  Mute, she sank in a deep curtsey . . . and when she looked up at their murmur of approbation, there was Dírmaen.

He was like a living blade: long and lean in the simplicity of steel-grey; a plain man, but a very noble one, and the shining of his eyes was the light of the West.

Slowly, he stretched out his open hand to her . . . and she went to him and laid her hand in his.  Lightly he clasped it, lifting it to his lips, and though the day was warm, his breath scalded her skin before it was brushed by the tenderness of his kiss.  Then, turning her hand over, he buried his face in it, repeating the salute more fervently on her palm.

Sliding her hand up his clean-cut cheek, she drew him down to her.

After a time, Maelchon called in his bull's voice, "Well, that seems plain enough, but we must hear some oath if we are attest to it."

As one, they both turned their faces to him.  "Is it midday?" Saelon asked, ignoring the sniggering and smirks about them.

The grinning husbandman squinted skyward.  "Near enough," he judged.

"Get on, Lady!" Airil demanded querulously.  "Fransag will nae let us drink until we've pledged your health!"

"Fransag," Saelon reproached, this being taken as license for open mirth.

Though she beamed on the pair of them as benevolently as her husband, the goodwife's eyes were knowing.  "On with you, woman.  How much longer d'ye expect the man to wait?"

Why Rian bothered to give them an appearance of dignity when they were to be treated with such irreverence, Saelon did not know.  "Very well," she huffed, lips quirking, and looked back at Dírmaen.  Her vision of the high Man of the West was dispelled, but the ardor of his kisses had driven off the cold uncertainty coiled in her belly as the sun burned away a mazing mist.  "Give me your hand, sir."  Let her have her desire and learn how imprudent it was.  "Dírmaen son of Dûnthand of Gellnen, I make this vow before these good folk and the One above all: lady and wife I will be to you, for a year and a day."

Such a grip he had!  "Saelon, Lady of Habad-e-Mindon and Srathen Brethil, I vow likewise: husband and defender I shall be to you, for as long as you will have me."

Those were not the exact words they had agreed upon, yet the hazard was all his.  "The One bless us and keep us."

"May it be so."

This time their kiss was not surrounded by silence.

Maelchon came forward with two cups.  "The gods give you joy," he said in hearty benediction, placing one in their joined hands, then turned to those thronging about them.  "Health to Lady Saelon and her husband!"

"Health!" rang off the bright stone of the sun-struck cliff.

Dírmaen gave her the cup first, then drank deep before kissing her again, his mouth all the sweeter for the mead.  Husband: aye, he was hers now, and if it were not Loëndë and her favorite dishes on the board, she would wish all these good people away and feast on him.

"Now that you have tasted the sweet," Maelchon pronounced, with a gravity absent from his face, "you must feel the restraint.  Clasp hands—no, your left hand to her right," he corrected Dírmaen, who was reluctant to change and looked on the bearded husbandman, bemused.

Leaving him the cup, Saelon took his near hand, twining her fingers in his.

"What is this?"  So swiftly the Ranger, glaring at the braided cord of leather in Maelchon's hand.

"You are handfast, sir," was the phlegmatic answer.  Used to binding beasts, the husbandman's blunt fingers were swift and sure, setting loops about their wrists as if hobbling a horse.  "It is part of the rite.  Fast find, fast bind."

"No one told me of this," Dírmaen muttered, still nettled.

Ambling up, jack in hand, Finean observed, "He does not sound very willing, Lady.  Are you sure you know your mind?  These high-bred chargers can be rumbustious."

"Why d'ye think she takes him on trial?"  Fransag came and leaned back into her husband's arms with saucy complacence.  "Mind the womman, noo," she advised Dírmaen, "or it mebbe long till you have both hands agane."

"I must please my lady to be freed?"

"Freed," Finean scoffed, as many around them burst out in rude laughter.  "We will hope you please her!" Murdag shrilled.

Saelon's face burned, for custom required their wrists to be bound until they had coupled themselves by the conjugal tie.  Had the men not told him this, and of the curse, should they cheat them of their fun?  The awkwardness it made was part of the merriment of a handfasting, more coarse and sportive than a wedding.  The Edain were earthy folk.  She had been prepared to endure the unpleasantness in return for its fixed term, but if this galled Dírmaen to ill humour, they might steal away between feast and dancing . . . though the ribaldry on their return would be unrelenting, and neither would ever again be allowed to lay claim to restraint.

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Dírmaen came down on the bench with a thump as Saelon fell against his breast, alternately gasping and giggling.  His head swam, but whether it was from the exertion of the last dance—Saelon's favorite, where they swung as dizzyingly as courting eagles—the mead, or her lively, maddening weight on his lap, he could not begin to tell.  Directly beneath his nose, another of the disheveled roses was losing its petals, so he let his head sag lower to breathe in her own scent, nuzzling the bewitching place beneath her ear and wrapping his free arm over her bound one to hitch her into a slightly less tormenting position.

She giggled a little more coherently and arched her neck back to capture his lips.  This brought his left hand high beneath her breast, and it took all the will he had remaining to resist the urge to take one of those sweet mounds into his hand.  Soon.  Very soon.  But not now; not here, before all her folk.  Once he began, he did not trust himself to stop until he was spent.

"Mead!" Saelon called, panting afresh once she had released him and fanning herself with her free hand.

Randir set a cup in her hand, and she drank thirstily, but when she offered it to him, Dírmaen shut his mouth and shook his still-giddy head.  Joviality had not disguised the look of calculation in his friend's eye.  The sky was as dark as it would be on this shortest of nights, when dusk ran into dawn; the children were all abed in Rian's chamber or tumbled like exhausted puppies in the shadows cast by the reduced bonfire . . . only the youths were unwearied, and even they half-stupefied by drink.  The last and lewdest ceremony remained, and would not be long delayed . . . yet Dírmaen was determined to escape it if he could.

If _they_ could.

Unless Finean was false, Mada stood saddled and bridled at the head of the track, a shadow among shadows.  To flee would have been a frivol, petty even by a lad's standards save for his own drunkenness and his lady's.  He had taken that into account.  But he had not known he would only have one free hand, and Saelon likewise.  However were they to mount, swiftly?  He should not have drunk so much of that sweetly insidious mead . . . yet it was hard to gauge, when sharing a cup.

Nor was Saelon much help, for though she sat quiet now, cuddled close and dreamily watching Rian whirl away from Randir into the curve of Artan's arm, her free hand trailed idly along his thigh, a wonderful distraction.

Across the fire, Murdag leaned nearer Fransag and spoke, then looked their way with vixen's eyes.  Was she suggesting he was so pithless more drink would unman him, or Saelon nearing insensibility, and urging their bedding?  If there was any malice in this blithe company, it was there.  Defender, he had sworn—and clasped Saelon close: he must prevent!

With a little grunt, Saelon shifted in his arms.  "Not so tight, love," she murmured.  "Or let us go to the whinnie bush."

Advantage loomed like a hedge in the mist.  "Not the whin," he said in her ear.  "Leod just went that way.  Let us go behind the hurdles of your garden."  It was perhaps the only excuse that would let them escape their watchers, even briefly.

She nodded mutely and swayed when he set her on her feet, but was steady enough as they walked into the moonless darkness, if they went slow.  Yes, Mada was there; Dírmaen heard him snuff and shuffle, and sensed the lift of his head in the gloom.  The horse, at least, was ready.

He let Saelon squat first, beneath the cover of her skirts, then, as they had worked out earlier with provoking amusement on her part, she lent a hand with his belt and breeks.  Now, however, she simply stood, keeping them from the ground and staring blankly into the night.  "They will take us to our bed soon," he said, low.

"Yes."

"What is done, when couples are bound?  At home, the women ready the bride and put her to bed before the men bring in the groom.  Surely they will not strip us both before all!"

"No," she answered, stirring herself.  "They could not, while we are tied.  They will put us in our chamber, I suppose, then listen at the door."

Not so bad as he feared, yet bad enough.  "Is that what you wish?" he asked, rebuckling.

"No.  Yes."  The hand bound to his turned to stroke him, and the other sought to bow his head.  "When the door is shut, I will not care."

He would not care either, until he must open the door and face those without.  If it were only Randir and their own kin, he would not mind so much . . . but how were they to rule the Edain if they did not keep some dignity?  "Let me steal you away," he begged, with the urgency roused by her kiss, "to a hidden bower.  There we can do as we will, free of all restraint.  Mada stands ready—come!"

Only starlight and the creeping pallor of foredawn limned her face, obscuring more than it showed.  Was that a gleam in her eye?  "Where?" she breathed, with a throaty laugh.

Taking her hand, he pulled her after him.  She stumbled, but did not fall; a few strides brought him to Mada's head, and he jerked free the tether.  Instinct sent his hands to the girth: loose.  Finean was trustworthy, but only to a point.  "Randir looks this way," Saelon hissed, as he heaved it tight.

"When I lift you," he told her, "put your leg over, and sit forward."

Though small, she was not light, and they nearly came to disaster as his still-weakened left arm hitched, but she got her heel across and levered herself into the saddle.  Mada snorted, sidling a step.

"Hai!" Randir shouted, as he grasped the saddle bow.  "They flee!"

Too late.  Stirrup, and spring—  Saelon shrieked as Mada surged forward, pitching onto the breakneck track, and they plunged downwards, her peoples' bereft cries echoing vainly behind them.

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Notes

**Barded** : covering lean meat with strips of fat or bacon to keep it from drying out during cooking.

**Bridal gift** : a gift given, by a bride or her kin, to the bridegroom on the occasion of their wedding.  (Among the Noldor, the bride's mother gave the gift; as in other matters, the Dúnedain may echo Elvish practices.  Rian is Saelon's nearest surviving female kin.)  Saelon's insistence on a handfasting is causing confusion, as people try to give it the formality they feel her station deserves.

**Hart-hounds** : running-hounds bred and trained to hunt red deer; think of something like [Scottish deerhounds](http://www.fernhill.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/md7a7615b.jpg).

**Elder** ( _Sambucus nigra_ ): a shrub with white flowers and edible berries; it has many medicinal and practical uses and, like rowan and may, was considered a defense against supernatural evil.

**"the stain the sheets ought to bear"** : in patrilineal cultures it is not uncommon for the bloodied sheets of a bridal bed to be formally inspected by the groom's kinswomen or even triumphally displayed to the entire wedding party as proof of a bride's virginity.

**"god over the water"** : Classical sources tell us ancient Britons believed that in a land far to the west slept a powerful god who had been deposed by his junior.

**"Fast find, fast bind"** : a traditional proverb.  Here, _fast_ does not mean "swift" but "firm, constant," as it does in _fasten_ , _steadfast_ , and _fast asleep_. . . yet the "swift" meaning is almost as old, leaving latitude for wit.

**"swung as dizzyingly as courting eagles"** : as part of their mating rituals, some eagles clasp talons in mid-air and spin around and around as they fall together.

**Whinnie bush** : whin or gorse.  For details, see Whin in the [Dûnhebaid Dictionary](http://astele.co.uk/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=7676&SPOrdinal=1).


	34. Heart's Blood Ascending

_Scho is my verry harte, I am hir howp and heill;_  
_Scho is my joy inwart, I am hir luvar leill;_  
_I am hir bound and thrall, scho is at my command;  
_ _I am perpetuall, hir man both fute and hand._

—Anonymous, "My Hairt is Heich Aboif"

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With the clack of hoof on stone, the horse back on its haunches, they came down the devious deer track onto the machair.  "Where are you taking me?" Saelon murmured.  Mird by mead, she did not recognize this place in the pallid light of the slow dawn, though she must have been by scores of times.  They could not be more than a league . . . two . . . from her bay.  She had been sure of her bearings until they came to where the ridge ran down from the tower hill to lose itself in the peat hags.  There, Gaernath and Randir sought to seize them: dim, ghostly faces in the dark; hands snatching at reins; shouts, and the horse beating the air above—

How, she did not know, but they escaped, Dírmaen laughing exultantly as the pelting footfalls faltered and faded, his arm clutching her fiercely close.

So it still did, and the only answer she got when she twisted to look at him was the hunger of his lips.  Wedged between the saddlebow and his belly, she could feel the hardness of the man.  He had taken her from her folk, and was taking her to where he would take her to wife.

If they had stayed, she would have had him already.  "Is it far?" she breathed, with a catch, in his ear, as he tasted the softness of her throat.

"No," he assured her, curt, voice rough, and set the horse into a canter again.

Above the low cliff on their left, the sky gave pale promise of a fair morn, while the sea soughed somnolently in its dark bed.  Saelon leaned into Dírmaen's warmth against the chill of the air and let the mead she had drunk have its dreamy way with her.  What she would do with him, when he brought her to a bed . . . .

Perhaps she drowsed, for a strange tug on her arm brought her swimming up to find the horse standing beneath the cliff.  "Wake, love," Dírmaen murmured, with a coaxing kiss..

Or was this but a part of her dream?  "We are there?"

"Yes."

She gazed at the cliff, heavy-eyed, as he dismounted.  Deeper darkness gaped beside a bushy covert; the sweet scent of rose told her where they were.  One of the small caves beyond the Ram, with a shelly floor and pool nearby: a bower very much to her taste.  Once he had lifted her down from the saddle, she lavished her appreciation on him.

He drank deep until, when he tried to take her in both arms, she grunted, her bound right forced askew.  Something like a growl thrummed in his throat as he drew unwillingly back, eyes narrow as a baffled hound's, raising an answering quaver within her—but as she tugged at his hand, drawing him towards the cave mouth, he turned her into the curl of their joined arms and stooped, catching her up behind the knees.

For a few breaths, he gazed down on her with sharp-set satisfaction, then carried her in to their bed.  A rough frame of sea-cast logs it was, tightly packed with springy heather, the tender tops covered with blankets that smelt, when he laid her down upon them, of him and horse.  Her Ranger gallant . . . .  As he lay beside her, she reached over and stroked a lock of wind-blown hair from his brow.  So fine a man . . . .

"I cannot bear this shackle," he muttered, when their lips parted, free hand bunching her skirts at the hip.  "Or make out how to undress you."

Saelon laughed low in her throat, grasping the buckle of his belt.  "You cannot.  Not yet.  But so long as we can get these breeks off you . . . ."

Settling for less than all his desire did not please him; nor did she like that she was so awkwardly situated for caressing him into better humour.  "Later," she urged, when he suddenly remembered his boots.  "Take me, so we can be free!"

Free—though what loosed their hands would bind them straitly in other ways.  Yet it was easy to drown such thoughts, and other fears, in what her urging loosed.  A year—more—Dírmaen had yearned for her, and now she felt the potency of his pent desire.  Felt it and reveled in it: as he rose over her, her roving hand brushed the scar across his loins, from the wound that had bled him white.  She had saved him; his strength and vitality were from her, and to her he should give them.  She wanted him: his dogged admiration, a bulwark against her doubts; she wanted—

He was no maiden, either, though as little practiced as she.  Or perhaps not—more than forty years it had been since she took a man—but his ardent mouth craved earnest pardon for gracelessness before he came home, sword in sheath, face rapt.

For two-score years, she had remembered the pleasure of being filled.  The heart's pleasure . . . but not the body's, carnal as gluttony, the striving abandon of the rut.

Panting like a stag, he shuddered in the clutch of her thighs, breath catching like a sob as he spilled.

It was done.

When he would have removed himself from her, Saelon held her husband fast.  "Bide a while," she murmured, savoring completion.

"I am not a burden?"  Light as a skiff of breeze, his fingers smoothed a strand of sodden hair from her cheek.

His softened face had a glow, comely as the dawn.  "No."  She had feared she, being so small, would find him so or that he would pain her in other ways; yet the warm solidity of him was a comfort.

Belly to belly, she felt his breath ease, and his lips tenderly praised her sturdiness.  Yet sleep pressed harder upon her, strengthened by satiation and mead and last night's restlessness.  She made a small sound of mild complaint when Dírmaen turned them, finally leaving her, and would have snuggled against his breast . . . but he leaned away, groping for something beside the bed.  "Mh?" she wondered, laboriously lifting her eyelids.

He showed her his knife before setting it to the cord that bound them.  Yet when she set both hands on him, he did not settle back down beside her.  "I must see to Mada," he said, with regret and an apologetic kiss.  "I will be quick."

Whether he was quick or not, Saelon never knew, but when she roused from slumber, the warm length of him was at her back and his breath, slow and deep, soughed in her ear like the sea.  It was very pleasant to wake so, unhurried as the long Midsummer dawn, with her husband's shapely arm—bare now—about her waist.

Had she not dreamt this, once?

This, too, might have been a dream, save for certain vulgar, importune needs.  Reluctantly, she drew away from him, lifting his arm while praying she did not wake him . . . but he was a Ranger, and stirred.  "Stay," she soothed, slipping from the blanket he had drawn over them.  "All is well."  And with a mumble and a moue, he curled closer around where she had lain.

Without, it was a very fair morning; a little way off, Mada lifted his head from grazing to gaze at her.  The air was cool in the shadow of the cliff, but there was every promise of another balmy day.  Not, Saelon reflected, that she would care if it were a dreary day of settled rain, given where she was like to spend it.  Lips quirking, she straightened and made her way to the linn, where she slaked her thirst and bathed her face.  As the ripples cleared, she caught a glimpse of her reflection and considered the wreck of Muirne's careful work.  A few battered rose petals still showed pale against her dark, disheveled hair; smiling, Saelon plucked them out and wandered over to the rich green of the may bush to pick fresh blooms from the briars that festooned it.

When she came back to their bed, Dírmaen had stretched out and there was a gleam beneath his lids.  "I would like to do that," he murmured as she began to undo her girdle.

How lascivious it made her feel, to lower her hands and smile and say, "Very well."  Might all her wifely duties be this pleasant!

Beckoning her nearer the bed, he rose no further than his knees.  Eye to eye they appraised each other as his fingers loosed the bent leather, unhurried.  There was a deep peace in his face, happiness and satisfaction and appetite together, grimness taken quite away.  "You are pleased by the bower, I hope."

"How can you doubt it?" she chided, and let her lips give him her gratitude in a kiss, as slow and savoring as his hands upon her body.  The only thing that could have been better would be to have him in her little cave at Habad, and the others all far, far away.

He drew gown and shift from her together, letting them fall to the floor as he gazed on her nakedness like one bespelled.  "You are pleased with your wife, I hope," she echoed, pert as her paps in the chill of the cave.

"How can you doubt it?" he replied with a laugh, glancing down at his ready yard.  "Come—lay beside me, and let me take that gooseflesh from you."

The heat of him was better than any blanket, and for a while she was content to have him simply hold her close, but when she had warmed her hands at his breast, she reached for that proud flesh.  How often she had handled it while he was ill, with dispassionate touch; now she could linger shamelessly over the captivating contrast of soft skin and firm flesh . . . .

Dírmaen's breath juddered and he shifted his hips restively.  "You have the advantage," he complained, eyes narrowed with pleasure.  "What do you not know of my body, after nursing me?  May I not have leisure to learn more of yours, which I have only just seen?"

"You never spied on me as I bathed?"

"Never," he assured her, stroking her flank to haunch with a strong, proprietary hand.  "Who would not have seized such beauty?"

Saelon laughed indulgently at such flattery.  "More than a few, I am sure.  But please, discover what kind of bargain you have made."

There were moments when she regretted the invitation extremely—but they were few, an exquisite torment, beyond the most heated imaginings spawned by her years of solitude.  He scouted her as only a Ranger could, exploring every swell and fold with touch and scent and taste, pausing only when she quivered and groaned like a stricken doe.

Necton, that simple, lusty lad, had had a brisk way with pleasure . . . but this man, thoughtful and reverent and slow, brought her near to madness before he finally covered her, and his rapture was a blessed relief, for then he was still.  "How I dreamt of this," he whispered in her ear, once their breath had quieted, "when the fever ate at me.  Your hands—" he lifted one, languorously kissing first a fingertip, then the palm—"your cunning hands were always on me, the more tortuous the more tender, for I despaired of winning you."

She gave him her mouth, to take the taste of old pain away.  When they parted enough to lie together, cheek by cheek—long-armed, Dírmaen snared the blanket from where it was rutched against the rough stone wall of the cave, drawing it over their cooling bodies—she sighed, though more in contentment than regret.  "I am sorry I harrowed you so.  Yet your despair assured me that your love was true . . . and," she finished roguishly, misliking this shadow of old unhappiness, "I plainly saw how well you are made."

His tone was light as hers, but did his jaw tighten?  "How many men have you seen, that you are such a judge?"

"Enough.  Truly," she said, turning to lay a hand on his heart and fix his eye, "none that I nursed have I wanted, save you."

"I am yours," he assured her, setting his hand over hers with a serene smile.  "What else does your heart desire?"

It was hard to think of anything wanting.  "Oh . . . what have you provided to break our fast?"

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This time, when Dírmaen woke, the place beside him was no longer warm from Saelon's heat.  Rubbing bleared eyes, he sat up and peered about him.  How long had he slept?

Beyond the cave's dark arch was a sky of purest blue, and by the fall of light, it must be near midday.

Late.  Shamefully late.  Though it had been his wedding night.  Yet where was his wife?

Her clothes were not where he had let them fall . . . nor were his where he had placed them, save for his sword belt and boots.  Was this some new prank?  Had Randir tracked them and stolen her away?  He was on his feet before he remembered other mischief—despite all his care to provide a bower that would please her, he had neglected to lay in a store of food.

Saelon had taken his appalled contrition in better humour than he had any right to expect, with a snort and a laugh, setting her teeth to him in jest before soothing his mortification at her breast.  Yet her discontent may have grown with hunger.

This was not how he had wished them to begin.

The breeze shifted, bringing a waft of smoke and the faint sound of wordless song into the cave, and his heart unclenched.  That was Saelon's voice, and it was glad, not ominous.  Wrapping the blanket around his loins, Dírmaen ventured forth, unsure of what he would find.

On the apron of shelly earth before the cave was a small fire of driftwood, shore cobbles set in the embers; close beside a rough stone box about a span square had been set into the ground, and it was filled with some liquid that steamed faintly.  Eyeing it with trepidation—there was seaweed in it—Dírmaen made for the singing, which came from where the stream-fall had cut back the cliff and made a pool.

When he rounded the corner of rock, his eye fell on Saelon, washing linen in the pool, the bare curve of her haunches fair in the sun.

His heart was ravished anew at the sight, and beneath the blanket, his slaked yard stirred gamely.  Her loosed hair was dark and otter-sleek; drops of water glinted like gems across her pearl-white shoulders and back.  What man entire could see such beauty and not be consumed by desire?

Song rising like a lark's, she wrung out her gown and reached for another garment, which he recognized, after she had plunged it into the water, as his shirt.  "You did not need to do this," he protested, as she paused in her song to beat the cloth.

The smile she bestowed on him was no less entrancing than the supple curve of her turn, though it quirked when she saw the blanket kilted about him.  "We should return to the hall in linen soiled by our pleasure?  However would your dignity bear it?"

He went to her, unable to resist the marvel of possession, the right to touch and hold her shapely flesh.  "How could it be worse than failing to provide for you?" he wondered ruefully.

She laughed at him.  "If you must fail to provide, may it always be for the table!  It is long since I wanted a man to feed me.  Have a bathe," she advised, after salving his wounded pride with a kiss of unreserved sweetness, "while I spread these to dry, and by then dinner will be ready."

Halpan had once said none would ever starve in Saelon's keeping.  Though she lacked pot and spoon and knife, she spread the other blanket beside her kist-cauldron full of sea-stew and they supped from the shells of the cockles that made the broth.  There was purple sea-kale and roots seethed to tenderness, but the green seaweed was uncommonly tough.  Drawing an invincible strand from his mouth, Dírmaen frowned at it.  "Was it necessary to include this?"

"Slake will support a man through a long day of hard labor," she replied, amorously droll.  "You seem to need recruitment."

He could not let such a challenge pass unanswered.  Taking the shell from her hand, he scooped her up and carried her to the nearest greensward, where he peeled her still-damp shift from her and served her as a buck served his doe, while she laughed and moaned and writhed bewitchingly beneath him.  To bring her to bliss was almost as pleasurable as his own release.

"Has that satisfied you?" he asked once he unfolded from around her, after a last lingering taste of her sun-blushed shoulder.  That she was passionate to recklessness, he had long known—had he not seen her rebuke high elven lords?—but her austerity made her seem abstinent, and her appetites were spare.  When she first reproached herself with wantonness, he had thought it a ploy, to put him off.  But this—

"For now," she allowed, throwing an arm across his breast and resting her chin on his shoulder.

Her rosy complacence made his heart sing.  "Then I suppose I had best finish my dinner."

"It will keep," she assured him, holding him fast.

"As you wish."  Anything, so long it assured him her smile.  He prayed she might hold him forever.

Yet the sun was too strong to lay in its warmth for long.  They finished the stew with her shift draped across their shoulders and then retreated to the shade of the may bush, where he nipped lengths of blooming briar, stripping them of their thorns so he might weave a chaplet to crown her beauty.  She lay on the daisy-flecked grass and watched him, lips curved in an indulgent smile.  "Shall I find something for our supper?" he asked, once he had set the wreath on her tousled hair.  He had slumbered while she found their dinner, and her eyes were so heavy . . . .

Her sigh widened into a yawn.  "I would like that.  Yet," she mused, idly as one woolgathering, "would it not be better to return to Habad?  Feeding ourselves will be more trouble than a little ribaldry, and I would not want them to fear you have stolen me away entirely."

If only she would consent to being carried away from her unwonted responsibilities for more than a day!  Though he might have prevented this with better preparation.  "True . . . but it is long before they will sit down to supper.  We need not hurry away."

"No," she agreed, closing her eyes.

He stretched out alongside, setting his arms carefully about her—yet sleep had already claimed her.

How lovely she was when she was at peace, his falcon!  How slight in his arms!  Such trust, from so fierce a creature, was precious beyond words, and for a long time he kept watch, lest anything disturb her long-deserved rest.  But there was nothing here to guard against, close by the sea where she had found refuge for so long, save the birds that flitted in and out of the boughs above and the breeze, cool in the shade.  The hush of the waves; the reassuring sound of Mada's teeth on turf nearby; the low, soft breathing of the woman in his arms . . . all these wove their lulling spell, and soon he was carried off as well.

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Notes

**Mird** : Scots, meddled or dallied with.

**Linn** : Scots, a waterfall, or the pool beneath one.

**Briars** : thorny stems, particularly those of the rose.

**Girdle** : no, not the tight-fitting undergarment, but a belt.

**Gooseflesh** : goose bumps.

**Entire** : whole; that is, uncastrated.

**Sea-kale** ( _Crambe maritima_ ): a distant wild relative of the more common garden kale, native to pebble beaches in western Europe.

**"roots seethed to tenderness"** : these probably include wild carrot ( _Daucus carota_ ), which Hebridean women traditionally gave their men as gifts after Michaelmas horse races; sea beet ( _Beta vulgaris maritima_ ), eaten in northwestern Europe since the Mesolithic; and sea holly ( _Erynigium maritimum_ ).  The last was traditionally considered to "strengthen the spirit procreative."

**Chaplet** : wreath to wear on the head.


	35. Like Him That Travels

_The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before._

—Colette, _Noces_

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Shaking her skirts into order, Saelon watched her shirtless husband saddle his horse with warm satisfaction.  Tormented as she had been by long-denied desire these weeks since she spied him in the pool, she had sought no more than honorable relief from the hunger his comeliness and dogged passion had finally roused.  Delight she had not expected; or at least not so much as he had given her.  Tender as she felt within, she was already anticipating the night, when she would have him in her own bed.

It was true, it seemed, that appetite grew with feeding.

"Do you not have a comb?" Dírmaen asked as she raked her fingers through her wild hair, trying to smooth it enough to braid.

"No.  Someone stole me away, leaving me no more than the clothes upon my body."  Yet that was more arch than reproach.  Indeed, she found it difficult to remember any grave dissatisfaction with him.  They had quarreled, yes; and he had vexed her, often . . . but what was that?  He had never truly baulked her will.

Or perhaps she was still giddy from last night's mead, though she had drunk nothing but water and his kisses since before the early dawn.  No; if she were drunk, it must be on his love.

"Here," he offered.  "You can have mine."  Drawing it from the pouch at his belt, he hesitated, then asked, "Or may I dress your hair?"

Saelon laughed.  "If you can manage half so well as you do with the horses' manes, I will be content."

Gesturing her towards a convenient rock seat, Dírmaen gave a soft chuff of dismissal.  "Why do you demean yourself so?" he wondered, capturing the ends of her flyaway locks.  "You have lovely hair."

"You, sir, seem to be taken by wayward things."  She had always found her tresses a trial, but then she did not have the patience to tease out the tangles, at least not as gently as he was doing.

"I like to take care of things.  I find it makes them less wayward."

"Hm."  If he meant to cozen her, he was making an excellent start.  The steady strokes of the comb were likely to lull her back to sleep.

"Do you have any sweet oil among your simples?"

"Of course.  Did you not see us boiling hazelnuts last autumn?"

"No."

No: he had left by then, fleeing her heartlessness.  Saelon bit her careless tongue.  "Well, there is plenty.  How much would you like?"

"A little will do."  His hands ran through her tamed tresses, dividing them.  "It will smooth your hair, so it does not tangle easily."

Did he think she did not know that every other woman—?  No.  Saelon caught herself.  There were many things she had lost the habit of, in the long years she was alone; niceties that had not mattered.  But she was not alone now, and a wife had a duty to please her husband, at least so long as he pleased her in return . . . and the deft touch of his hands, even in her hair, was very nice.  "Would you anoint it?"

He bent to kiss her throat beneath her ear.  "Gladly."

"Is there a scent that you like?  Aside from rose."  What did she have to scent oil?  All the violets hereabout were dog violets, and white wood-lilies had been rare even in Srathen Brethil, but there was woodbine and thyme, pine and juniper, heather and sweet gale.  Rian used rose, and Muirne woodbine—

"I am not sure I could tell one from another," Dírmaen confessed, with a rueful chuckle.  "But you usually have a pleasant scent about you from your herbs."

"If you like any particularly, tell me."

She felt the warmth of his breath before his lips touched her hair.  "I will."

When he had done—after some muttering about proper hairpins—he went to retrieve his shirt from the may bush.  "Are you ready to go, Lady?"

Lightly touching the filet of braids and knot at her nape, Saelon went to the linn to look at his handiwork.  Simple, but neat, and more dignified than her usual braid or bun.  "Did you remember your blankets?"

"They are already spread for you."

Saelon saw, now, the folded wool behind the saddle.  "Must I ride pillion?"

This was an old quarrel.  Dírmaen gazed on her, brows knit.  "Why do you dislike it so?"

"Have you ever ridden pillion?"

"Yes, several times."

"Aside?"

"No," he allowed, still uncomprehending.  "Do you think I would let you fall?"

Her choices, then, were to be fearful or untrusting.  "It is not what I think, but what I feel.  I am not used to such tall beasts!  If you will not let me ride astride, I would rather walk."

Now he looked completely confounded.  "You rode pillion and aside behind Gaernath, when we traveled to Mithlond!"

"At your insistence."

"Ladies do not ride astride."

"This is absurd!" Saelon declared, angered by the marring of the day more than his obstinance.  She had known his mind.  "Who will see me who has any notion that I am a proper woman?  Ladies do not take a man by handfasting, either, nor dig their own gardens!  Do you think you will mend my reputation with sleek hair and a show of douce propriety?"  Fury—bitter disappointment—boiling up, she yanked the wooden pins from her hair and threw them at him, then stalked away, tears starting in her eyes.  He did not love her; he loved some dream of her, the lady she might have been if Minuial and Núneth had had their way.

A year and a day?  It had hardly been a day.

"Saelon!" he cried, as astonished as distressed.  She heard his swift feet; feeling the loom of his height, she rounded to face him.  Hands flung wide and open, he stopped dead and dropped to his knees like a poleaxed stirk, with much the same expression.  "My love!  How else can I show that I honor you before your folk?  Tell me, and I will do it.  Take the saddle, if you will—I will walk!"

How could one be irate before so beseeching a face?  "Fool!  Can we not go as we came?  If you are determined to make a show, very well—but do not inflict it on me until there is someone to see!"

He still looked very unhappy.  Touching a streaming lock of her hair, he asked, "Was this an affliction?"

"No.  Oh—" Heart suddenly leaden with remorse, she reached out for him, tears welling afresh.  "Forgive me, love, for I cannot help myself."

His arms wrapped warm around her.  "Shh."  Kissing her softly on the cheek, he murmured, "The fault is mine.  I ought to have remembered that you disliked it."

And so they were silent together, while the breeze bent the grass.  "Will you do my hair again?" Saelon asked in a small voice, ashamed of the temper that had spoilt his work.

"If you like."

"Please?  It looked very well."

The strokes of the comb and gentle touch of his hands were soothing, but did little to assuage her sense of guilt, or the shadow on her heart.  They had been so happy— _she_ had been so happy—and then her bitterness had stooped, like a falcon from the cloudless blue.

"There," Dírmaen told her when he had finished, as lightly as though they had not quarreled.  "Would you like to look at it in the pool?"

"No.  Let's go home."

He was a quiet man, and set her in the saddle without further words; nor did he speak as they rode unhurriedly along the shore.  Yet he held her close, and his cheek often rested on her hair.

Oh, why had she taken him, even in handfasting, if only to scathe him?  She had warned him, but love had made him heedless.  Still, that did not excuse her.  He deserved better.

When her breath trembled on the verge of tears, he halted the horse.  "Lady . . . what is wrong?"

"Must you call me that?" Saelon cried.  "I know you mean no ill, but others have, and I cannot forget it."

"Who?"  The sternness of his voice boded ill for anyone she might name, as did the strength of his embrace.

She gave a dry sob of a laugh.  "No one you can punish, my champion—they are dead, _raug_ -slain in Srathen Brethil."

The horse stomped, and bit a fly.  "That place has grieved you much," Dírmaen observed, low and grave.

"Why do you think I left it?"

"Will you tell me of this trouble as well?"

Saelon shifted in the saddle.  "It is paltry—childish, even.  And they are dead.  I do not want you to think all my kin were unkind."

"No one can doubt that Rian loves you well, or that her father was dear to you."

That tipped her over.  "How can they, when I cannot think of him without weeping?"  Dashing the quick tears from her cheeks, she twisted to look at her new husband.  "Must you have the tale?"

"No."  He set the horse to a walk again.  "I only wish to know how you have been galled, to avoid pressing the place."

It was not so much a sore as a boil, old foulness that had slumbered long; yet the demands of society had inflamed it, and its eruptions were unpleasant.  Lancing might clear it, but it would be squalid.

Squalid, yes; yet there was no real dishonor in it, unlike her connection with Necton.  "Very well," she sighed, as they passed the black wall of the Ram.  "You know that my mother died when I was still a child."

"And your little brother as well."

"Yes."  She had told him that much: plague might strike any.  There was no shame in it, especially for a healer who had saved many before being overwhelmed herself.  "My sister Minuial, the eldest of us, took up her duties with pride—indeed, she welcomed the chance to display her abilities, for she had just reached marriageable age.  Father did not stint her of opportunity: many Dúnedain came to hunt with him and our brothers in those years . . . yet none asked for Minuial's hand."

"Why not?"

"How can I say?  I was a child.  But Minuial's excellence was exacting, and I often displeased her.  I did not care for the finery she dressed me in, as if I were a doll, nor did I show a proper delight in needlework.  When I escaped to my grandmother's, and came back dirty and scratched from collecting herbs, she would berate me for being a hoyden and pile extra mending into my basket."

"In vain, it seems," Dírmaen murmured, nuzzling her ear, "since you are still a hoyden.  Did your grandmother take your part?"

Did he like her wildness, or did he not?  He seemed not to know his own mind.  "It did not help, and she was too wise to make matters worse.  Especially as it became clear that I would never be tall."

"Why should she be so careful of that?"

The question itself was too careful, and she could feel the tension in his stillness behind her.  "Have you never had doubts of my parentage?"

"Surely your own sister did not!"

"I do not know—but she found it easy to blame men's reluctance to close with her on their misgivings."  How could a woman flaunt her high breeding if her sister looked like she had been sired by one of the Edain?  "Since I did not look like a lady and would not behave like one, she must be a spinster."  As in many things, Brassar had been quick to follow Minuial's lead, disparaging her for the shadow her want of height cast on their dead mother's honor.  Perhaps he had had cause for wrath, when he found her beneath Necton in a field: it must have given substance to whatever doubts were in his own heart.

"Did your father say nothing against this?"

"Who would say such things where he might hear?"  Although surely he could not have been ignorant of the aspersions.  "And who knows, now, what the truth was?  They are all dead.  But that is why I mislike 'lady': it was what I must be and could never be, by turns."

Dírmaen did not speak for several furlongs.  "I will not think ill of the woman," he decided.  "The manner of her death has repaid any cruelty.  But surely, love, you cannot have any doubt regarding your mother's virtue.  Your longevity alone belies it: you are my elder, and have fewer grey hairs than I do!  And did not Círdan hail you as a daughter of the line of Elendil before his people?"

"My mother was of that kin as well."

"Do Elves reckon kinship through the woman, rather than the man?"

"Not that I have heard."

Setting his hand on her cheek, he turned her face and craned his neck, so she could see the forthrightness in his eyes.  "Truly, Saelon, you are the noblest woman I have ever met."

What else would a new husband say?  "Then I am sorry for your kinswomen, who must be in a piteous state."

He huffed, and took a kiss before setting the wondering horse back in motion.  "Obstinate creature!  If you are determined to think ill of yourself, wait until tonight, and then I will use you as basely as you could wish."

Reaching down, she caressed his thigh.  "I deserve no better."  She did not, taking this good man for no reason but to serve her unseasonable lust.  Yet she would strive to give satisfaction in return.

So when they reached the tower hill, she let him seat her behind him, to return to Habad in far more dignified state than they had left it.  It was not unpleasant to sit with an arm about his waist, gazing out across the evening sea as the horse ambled along the clifftop.  "We must stop at Maelchon's," she said.  Though they would face the worst ribaldry there, husbandmen's tongues being freer than cottars', it would be uncivil not to accept their compliments, pleasing or otherwise.

Though a thin thread of smoke rose from the louver in the still air, the only greeting they received as they rode into the houseyard was the hopeful thump of Luath's tail, beating in the dust.  The unpeopled silence prickled Saelon's nape: it was unnatural, too like the dreadful day when she found the reivers here, though the only horse to be seen was Maelchon's white-footed mare, staring placidly as she stood in the shed.  Dírmaen's hand went to his sword as he looked from the open door of the house to the black hound, then around the yard, seeking ill.

The soft sound of a babe's fussing came from within the house, a homely sound.

"That must be Meig," Saelon whispered.  Only Murdag and Leod's daughter was so young.  But where were her parents?  And Maelchon and his family?

"Wait," Dírmaen told her, slipping from the saddle.

And do what, if anything evil was afoot, other than fall off?  "No."  Sliding down, she hissed, "Give me your knife."

From his expression, she would be told off later—but he passed her the knife.

It was longer than the one Veylin had given her and did not balance so well in her hand, but its weight was reassuring as they moved silently to the door.  As Dírmaen leaned to look in, Saelon peered around him.

The cradle stood by the hearth, where a few peats smouldered; cold meats and bannocks, which looked like leftovers from the feast, lay on a bench alongside a pair of jacks.  That looked peaceful enough . . . but where were Leod and his wife?

As Dírmaen turned to gaze back towards the shed, brows knit, Saelon slipped past him.  A glance in the cradle assured her Meig was well enough: wet or hungry, no worse.  Padding to the inner door, she glanced into the ben—and clapped the hand that did not hold the knife over her mouth.

Swift as thought, Dírmaen was at her side as she reeled back, catching her with one hand as he began to draw with the other.  Shaking her head wildly, she seized his swordhand, snorting with hard-stifled laughter.

Within, Leod and Murdag lay sprawled across Maelchon's broad bed, bare legs tangled and her black hair spread over the golden curls on his breast, as he snored softly.

Drawing her husband firmly away, Saelon hastened outside, where her hilarity finally burst free.  "Will we find Maelchon and Fransag in our bed, do you think?" she wondered, pressing his blade into his hand.  "Could Rian have put butterwort in the mead?"

"We had better not," Dírmaen muttered, boosting her onto their mount's rump without ceremony.  "What are they about?"

She rolled her eyes, grinning.  "One cow breaks the fence, and a dozen leap it."

"In their master's bed?!"

As he settled in the saddle, she slid her arm about his waist; hand straying below his swordbelt, she found the cottars' abandon had not roused his ardor as it had hers and firmly clasped his buckle instead.  "Just as well I sent them to Maelchon, then.  There was always that shade of impudence about them."

"Shade?  Impious dogs."

Saelon thought such outrage harsh: the couple was young and full-blooded, and Murdag had but recently recovered from bearing Meig.  They must want a roof of their own, even if it was over the merest hovel.  Maelchon had probably sent Leod back to tend the beasts and Murdag to ready the house for his family's return, and the opportunity proved too tempting.  They had only wanted the liberty she and Dírmaen had enjoyed.

If the husbandman was only waiting for their return to head home, she would have to find some excuse to delay them, for a little while at least.

As they neared the machair, she ran her hand up Dírmaen's breast and murmured, "I hope you do not look displeased, or they will think I have vexed you."  There was a stern rectitude to his spine that could be easily misunderstood.

Laying his hand over hers, he glanced back over his shoulder, showing her a softer look than she had imagined.  "Never fear, love.  If they have any doubts, they will not last longer than it takes to feed us.  Do you think there will be any venison left?"

That set her to laughing, so they were both smiling broadly when they were spotted by Canand, milking the sheep in the twilight; and once he hallooed, all peace was lost.  Clamorous as kittiwakes, the voices raised in cheers and good-natured jeers echoed off the cliff so that the horse pinned back his ears as Dírmaen urged him up the track.

They looked quite a crowd even without the younger children, who must be abed, gathering close as they reached the flat: there was Rian, beaming with great relief, as Randir bent to whisper in her ear; Gaernath grinning like a looby.  Otherwise all looked much as it had when they had left, the boards still standing about the fag-ends of the Midsummer bonfire.

"Well," Saelon said coolly to those knowing, smiling faces, "has anyone given thought to mealtimes in my absence, or have you all simply lain about, gnawing on last night's leavings?"

"Hoo!" Maelchon exclaimed.  "You have not sweetened her temper, Dírmaen!"

Fransag snorted, looking from one of them to the other.  "More like he has taken all the honey for himsel, and left nane for us.  Come, ye two: I set a good meal aside agin yer return.  However ye hae been hammering on each ither, I expect ye hae an appetite."

"We do," Saelon said as Dírmaen helped her down, with as much dignity as she could find.  "I take that very kindly, Fransag, though surely Rian could have managed."

"So I told her!" Rian protested, pink-cheeked, as she came forward to be kissed.

"No doubt.  Yet," the goodwife's not entirely placid eye rested meaningfully on Randir, "I thought I would keep an ee on the young folk, lest spirits run too high."

Knowing how high they ran elsewhere, Saelon could not but grin.  "Thank you," she said, and bussed her cheek as well.

Fransag colored, then laughed.  "I am glad to see ye baith so blithe—the Good God knows ye deserve it.  Come in, come in.  We have saved eneuch of the mead to welcome ye home properly."

Home.  Before, she had always welcomed the sight of the place: the sure shelter of the cliff, the sweet water of its spring, the view it gave of the mighty sea.  But had the place welcomed her, as these people did?  Here was a warmth greater than that of the sun, great and golden though it was above the wine-dark sea.

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Notes

**Sweet oil** : a plant oil with a pleasant odor or taste, especially olive oil.

**Dog violet** ( _Viola riviniana_ ): a common, but scentless, Scottish violet.

**White wood-lilies** (lily-of-the-valley; _Convallaria majalis_ ): a fragrant, spring-blooming flower found in lime-rich dry woodland.

**Woodbine** (also honeysuckle; _Lonicera periclymenum_ ): a woody vine with fragrant flowers.

**Sweet gale** (also bog myrtle; _Myrica gale_ ): an aromatic shrub used for flavoring, dyeing, and medicinal purposes.

**Poleaxed** : a poleaxe, an [axe with a hammer head opposite the blade](http://homepage.eircom.net/~clontubrid/history_projects/history_project_images/hisproj7poleaxe.jpg), was commonly used to kill animals before butchery.  This is not the same thing as a military poleaxe, which is either a short-handled axe with a spike or hook opposite the blade, or an axe on a long handle.

**Butterwort** (bog-violet; _Pingvicula vulgaris_ ): while its common name comes from its use in the dairy to curdle milk for cheesemaking, it was also a protection against evil and a potent love-charm.

**Kittiwake** ( _Rissa tridactyla_ ): a small, cliff-nesting gull.


End file.
